130 ENTRIES MARK CAPE'S ANNUAL PARADE OF LIGHTS

If you can't find any lights for your Christmas decorations this year, it's because they were needed to adorn the floats entered in the annual Christmas Parade of Lights Sunday.

More than 130 entries, embellished with lights and blaring out the sounds of Christmas carols and hymns, paraded down Broadway Sunday evening. The parade began at dusk at Capaha Park and ended nearly two hours later at Main and Broadway streets.

The parade is sponsored by the Downtown Merchants Association and is held on the Sunday following Thanksgiving. It begins with a run to benefit Toybox, a program designed to collect toys for needy children, that is sponsored by the Southeast Missourian and Cape Girardeau Road Runners. The run raised more than $400 for Toybox and included 65 entries.

The Parade of Lights has become a tradition in Cape Girardeau after seven years. The parade is one of the best around, organizers say. "Entry for entry it is one of the best parades you'll see," said Kent Zickfield, parade coordinator.

Businesses, civic organizations, churches and area school clubs entered floats in the parade. Most of the floats depicted traditional Christmas scenes, whether religious or secular. Others were simply seasonal lighted displays that played holiday tunes while parading along the route.

Children whose parents worked at Lee-Rowan rode amid the Winter Wonderland float filled with gingerbread men and candy canes. Most of the children riding on the float had been waiting for the parade to begin all afternoon at Capaha Park.

It was the first year Lee-Rowan had entered a float in the annual parade, employees said.

By 1 p.m. Sunday, several float entries and sponsors were already lining up at Capaha Park in preparation for the event.

A crew from Hull Trucking Inc. worked on finishing touches to their giant snowman. Nearly everyone at the business had been involved in the float decoration, which began around Halloween with a brainstorming session. "We all just started talking about it and getting ideas," said Larry Hull, owner of the business.

The group had entered a float two years ago in the parade and "wanted to see if we could do it" again, said Sue Ponder. It takes a lot of lights -- nearly 2,000 -- to put a glow on Frosty the Snowman aboard the bed of a tractor-trailer. It takes another 1,500 lights for the sled and child and another 1,000 for the signs and trees on the float.

Even the animals got in on the holiday excitement Sunday during the parade. Several pets -- mostly dogs -- participated in the march donned in holiday gear and antlers. Other animals, like the miniature horses owned by Linda and Bill Pratt of Scott City, wore slightly more sophisticated gear. The Pratts' miniature horses enjoy the attention and excitement that comes with a parade so they don't mind wearing lighted harnesses and pulling a small carriage."We were in the Thanksgiving parade in St. Louis and that was probably the longest parade," Linda Pratt said. "But they love the attention and like being petted."The Pratts own 17 horses, but only five of them are trained to pull the carriage.

Entries in the parade aren't limited to just Cape Girardeau. Marching bands from Bell City, student groups from Benton and scout troops from Southern Illinois entered floats. More than 15,000 people from as far away as Ste. Genevieve and Southern Illinois were expected to line Broadway for the parade.