RISING SUN, Md. — One Cecil County town will be using the holidays to showcase its agricultural heritage this year.
The town of Rising Sun is launching its inaugural Holiday Tractor Parade, to be held at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 3.
Participants can compete to win in three special categories - "Tractor with the most lights," "Most Festive Tractor," and "Most Original Decorations/Display."
Heather Szarka, who came up with the idea, said her 2-year-old son is "obsessed with tractors" and both her children loved seeing a few decorated tractors last year.
"Rising Sun and Cecil County in general is such a big agricultural community. It's not uncommon to drive to the grocery or to school or work and pass a combine or several tractors on your way... I thought, let's do a tractor parade. We have such a great agricultural community, and it would be so wonderful to really put kind of a highlight on that. And it brings a lot of different folks together that maybe wouldn't typically come out to the events."
The parade will take place during Rising Sun's third annual Winter Extravaganza, which Szarka said drew more than 2,000 people last year in foot traffic alone.
Szarka hoped they could get 15 to 20 tractors to register, but more than 25 have signed up as of Monday.
She noted that several are going to pull some decorated wagons and some floats, and there are even "whispers of Santa making an appearance."
"We've got a lot of folks that are coming from different parts of Cecil County with their tractors, but also some folks from Pennsylvania coming down, so it'll be really neat to see how many people we draw for this," she added.
