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Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I had found a patriotic dress for my daughter, Sophie, to wear to Albert Lea’s annual Third of July Parade.

She could have only been maybe around 4 at the time, and she loved parades.

We packed up some water and sunscreen as we headed to our spot at the time to sit and wait for the parade to begin.

It was always part of the experience to find a few snacks at the nearby store we could munch on as we waited usually over an hour for the parade to start and get down to where our seats were.

And then, when we saw the lights of the police cars approaching in the distance, we knew the fun was about to begin.

It must have been an election year because before we knew it, someone walking in the parade handed Sophie a sticker with a candidate’s name on it as they passed. Not knowing anything about the name on the sticker, she quickly put it on her dress.

I try hard to be as neutral as I can in my job — which means no political signs will ever be in my yard and you’ll never see me with a bumper sticker on my car.

With that notion in the back of my head, I knew we couldn’t stop at one sticker for one party, and we began accepting stickers from all the candidates for both major political parties. Sophie wanted to wear them all on her dress, and before long there were stickers from the campaigns for Allen Quist, Tim Walz, Rich Murray, Amy Klobuchar and Mike Parry.

She almost seemed to be more excited by the stickers than she was the candy.

By the time the parade was over, she looked like a walking political advertisement — not for one political party of course but maybe like she was an advertisement simply to get out to vote.

When we got back to our house that night, I took a picture of her in the front yard.

Looking back through some pictures Sunday, I found another picture probably a year or two after that one where she was loaded up again with stickers — right next to each other that year were Peggy Bennett and Shannon Savick, who were opponents at the time for the District 27A race.

As she got older, the stickers became less important to Sophie, but her love of the parade continued.

Sophie loved many things, but the Fourth of July holiday was one of her favorites — as it is mine.

The year she died — seven years ago — was the only year I haven’t attended the parade.

The parade was the day after she died, and life was standing still for us while the usual festivities continued moving forward around us.

While the Fourth of July will always be one of my favorite times of year in Albert Lea, it is a little tainted now.

But I will try to celebrate it this year as she would have — with smiles, candy and maybe even a political sticker or two — or 10 — all for her little brother, of course.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Wednesday.