John Schoel of Primrose School of Kingwood in the 2009 Kingwood Mardi Gras Parade

The Town Center Park Association has confirmed that Primrose School of Kingwood will sponsor the annual Mardi Gras Festival and Parade in the Kingwood Town Center Park on Saturday February 13th. Primrose School of Kingwood is locally owned and managed by Andrea & John Schoel who also own and operate the Primrose School at Fall Creek. The event will be open from noon to 6pm and the parade will be at 2pm.

The festival will again include a parade of floats and a vendor fair.  The parade will be led by Grand Marshall Rick Alspaugh of Alspaugh’s Hardware, Rent-a-Husband and 1-800-Got-Junk. Primrose School will have a float and many others have already signed up to participate. This is a very popular part of the festival with young and old vying to collect the most beads, medallions and other goodies from the floats.

Food and drink will be available from local merchants including Chachis and the vendor fair will offer a wide variety of high quality arts and crafts. King cakes will be available from Zacharys Cajun Café and HEB. Face painting and inflatables will be there and the very popular bungee-jumping trampoline will return after a successful debut at the Christmas event.

Mark Linabury, Kingwood’s Premier DJ will entertain from noon until 3pm with his zany brand of humor and commentary. He will partner with Emcee Sparky Nolan of the Kingwood Chamber of Commerce who will again comment directly from the parade floats.  Sparky will also gather all the kids on stage after the parade to see who got the most beads.

Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Road Runners will perform from 3pm until the close of the festival at 6pm. Commenting on the choice of headline band, organizer Tony Austin said that the band had received rave reviews when they last performed here in 2007 and so we were very happy that we were able to secure him for the afternoon. With an unmatched repertoire of Zydeco, Cajun, Blues, R&B, and Country music he mixes an ideal combination of traditional zydeco with his own innovative, funky, hard-driving sound!

Entry to the festival is free for the public. Organizations or groups wishing to be in the parade or book a vendor booth should call Angela Griffing on 713-305-2239.

Other sponsors include Lake Houston Chamber of Commerce, Remax Associates North-East and Chachis.  For more information on the event call Angela Griffing on 713-305-2239 or e-mail angela@towncenterevents.com.

For information on Primrose School of Kingwood call Andrea or John Schoel on 281-358-0203 or visit http://www.primrosekingwood.com/

For information on Leroy Thomas visit http://www.zydecoroadrunners.com/

Photos from the 2009 Kingwood Mardi Gras Festival and Parade