LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — This year’s Veterans Day parade in downtown Las Vegas brought out large crowds, with floats, cars and marching groups filling the route around Third Street and Colorado Avenue.
Among the groups taking part were the Vegas Golden Gals, a senior pom-pom team now in its fifth year, and the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, a visiting group from Wisconsin.
The Vegas Golden Gals formed after a 2021 incident in Waukesha, Wisconsin, when an SUV drove through a holiday parade, killing four members of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, two other people and injuring 60 people, according to Cynthia, a member of the Vegas group.
“We are in our fifth year of having the Vegas Golden Gals around,” Cynthia said. “We’re a senior lady pom-pom group. We’re ages 55 and up. Our oldest is 75 on the team.”
Senior pom-pom groups march together
Organizers in Las Vegas reached out to the Milwaukee group after the 2021 incident to offer condolences and later decided to create a similar senior pom-pom team in southern Nevada.
Cynthia said the Vegas Golden Gals have tried to collaborate with the Dancing Grannies. Members of the Las Vegas team traveled to Wisconsin about a year and a half ago to march in the Dancing Grannies’ Fourth of July parades and at Summerfest.
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“A year and a half ago, we went there to march in their Fourth of July parades and Summerfest, which is the largest music festival in the world,” Cynthia said. “At that time, they talked about coming here for Veterans Day, but not that year. In ’25, they said it’ll be about a year and a half. So, they’re here with us today.”
About 25 members of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, along with some of their husbands, traveled to Las Vegas to participate in the Veterans Day parade this year, Cynthia said.
“We’re so happy to have them here again with us,” she said.
Veterans Day meaning for participants
Cynthia said this was the Golden Gals third time marching in the Veterans Day parade.
“This is about our third Veterans Day parade, and it just means so much to us,” she said. “My husband is a veteran. He was in the Vietnam War. He was in the Air Force. And just knowing what they did for our country and the freedoms that we have are all due to them. We’re so greatly appreciative.”
Members of both groups said marching together in the parade was a way to honor service members and acknowledge lives lost and affected by past parade events.
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