In November 1918, word reached Porterville that World War I was over. Mildred Sharp grabbed a bell, walked to the school at Morton Avenue and Main Street, and started shouting that the boys were coming home. People came out and followed her down Main Street. Don Dowling, longtime chairman of the Veterans Homecoming Committee, described it to the Porterville Recorder in simple terms: "That was the first parade. It was very spontaneous."
The poster for this year's parade says 108th. If you count from Mildred Sharp's bell, Nov. 11, 2026 would be the 109th. The official number begins a year later, in 1919, when the veterans themselves organized it. That one-year gap explains how Porterville's Veterans Day still works. The town kept the spontaneous moment as its origin story and gave the event itself to the organizations that have run it ever since.
The Count Starts When the Veterans Took Over
The Recorder's history lays out the order. Once the armistice was signed, men began returning to Porterville. A group of them formed the American Legion post and set up an annual observance marking the end of the war, with a moment of silence at the 11th hour. The first organized parade, called the Armistice Parade, followed in 1919.
The numbering checks out from there. A City of Porterville release from Nov. 7, 2024 called that year's event the 106th annual parade. Two years later, the Porterville Chamber's 2026 listing says 108th. Count 1919 as the first, and 2026 lands exactly on 108.
The organized version grew quickly. By 1923, when the new Porterville High School had just opened, the Armistice Day parade had become a full celebration. World War I veterans marched, and car races and bicycle races on the streets followed.
The name changed later, though the sources disagree on exactly when. Dowling's account in the Recorder has the community marching as the Armistice Parade from 1918 to 1945. The same article also explains that Congress replaced "Armistice" with "Veterans" in the federal holiday on June 1, 1954, and says the parade became the Veterans Day Parade from 1954 onward. The 1954 date matches the federal change. The 1945 date reflects one longtime organizer's memory.
One Day, Several Groups Running It
The groups that took over in 1919 never handed the day to one central organizer. In 2024 the City listed three presenters: American Legion Post 20, the Porterville Veterans Memorial District and the Veterans Homecoming Committee. The City runs the morning race, the pageant has its own committee and history, and the afternoon band show is a separate event. Each piece keeps its own schedule.
Here is how this year's calendar lines up, with confirmed 2026 dates kept apart from last year's precedents:
| Event | When | Where | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80th Veterans Homecoming Queen & Miss Porterville Pageant | Sat., Oct. 24, 6 to 7:30 p.m. | Porterville Auditorium | Confirmed for 2026 |
| Veterans Day Run: 5K run, 5K walk, 10K | Wed., Nov. 11, 7:30 a.m. | In front of City Hall, 291 N. Main St. | Confirmed for 2026 |
| 108th Veterans Homecoming Parade, "250 Years of Valor" | Wed., Nov. 11, 10 a.m. to noon | Main Street, downtown | Confirmed for 2026 |
| Buck Shaffer Band-A-Rama | Shortly before 2 p.m. in 2025 | Rankin Stadium | 2025 precedent, not yet confirmed |
The parade is free, and the Chamber asks spectators to gather along Main Street.
The Queen Has Her Own Count, and It Doesn't Quite Agree
The pageant follows the same pattern as the parade. It started under the Armistice name and was later rebuilt by local organizers. A 2015 Recorder account says the competition began as the Armistice Queen pageant in 1945. In the 1960s, Buck Shaffer proposed the dual title it still uses, "Veterans Homecoming Queen and Miss Porterville." Shaffer's name is also on the afternoon Band-A-Rama, which ties the October pageant and the November band show to the same person.
The City's own records tell the story a little differently. Porterville's Wall of Fame says Ed Flory, Mildred Sharp's son, kept the Homecoming Queen Pageant going "since 1948." The same entry credits his mother with inspiring the town's Veterans Day celebrations. The edition numbers don't settle it. The Recorder called the 2025 pageant the 79th, held Oct. 25 at the Buck Shaffer Theater at Porterville Memorial Auditorium, and the Chamber lists 2026 as the 80th. Neither number lines up cleanly with a 1945 or 1948 start.
The family link is clear, though. The woman who rang the bell in 1918 had a son who kept the pageant running for decades. That's the same handoff from one person to an organized group, repeated a generation later.
The queen's role ties the season together. In 2007 and 2008, a pageant sponsored by American Legion Post 20 and VFW Post 2001 sent its queen and court to preside over the Veterans Memorial Service, the parade and the Band-A-Rama. In another year's coverage, the Recorder described the city's annual Veterans Day Memorial Service on a Sunday evening at the Veterans Memorial Building, where the reigning Homecoming Queen spoke. The Recorder's 2025 parade preview named the queen and her court next to that year's grand marshal. No 2026 memorial service has been announced yet.
Parade Morning, in Order
On Nov. 11, the separate pieces run back to back. Based on the City's Veterans Day Run page, the morning goes like this:
- 7:30 a.m. The 5K run, 5K walk and 10K start in front of City Hall at 291 N. Main St. Parking is on side streets only.
- Right after the start. A free kids' dash.
- 8:30, 8:45 and 9 a.m. Awards for the 5K run, 10K run and 5K walk, in that order.
- 9:30 a.m. Everyone on the 10K course has to be finished.
- 10 a.m. The parade steps off on Main Street, right after the race.
The 9:30 cutoff matters because the race and the parade use the same street, and the course has to clear before the parade can start. In 2024, registration cost $30, or $10 for veterans.
The opening of the parade has changed in recent years. In 2024 the City announced that Skydive Elsinore, which has been operating since 1959 and has a training facility in Porterville, would open with jumpers landing on Main Street in front of City Hall. KSEE24 broadcast the parade live with Mister Media that year. The Recorder's 2025 preview said the skydivers might land between City Hall and Centennial Park, but noted that it depended on FAA clearance and the end of a federal shutdown. Neither the jump nor a broadcast has been confirmed for 2026.
No 2026 route map has been published. Past routes have started at Morton Avenue: a 2014 schedule ran the parade south on Main from Morton to Walnut Avenue. A later City Council proposal started the route just south of Morton and extended it to Orange Avenue, past the usual Olive Avenue endpoint. Morton and Main is the same corner where Mildred Sharp rang her bell in 1918.
In 2025, the afternoon was scheduled to end at Rankin Stadium with the Band-A-Rama. The American Legion Post 20 Color Guard would lead Boy Scout Troupe 132 around the track with a large American flag for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a massed-band performance from 15 local high school and middle school bands and then school field shows.
"Oldest" Depends on Who's Counting
Porterville makes a big claim about this parade, and how big depends on who's making it. The Recorder's history calls it the oldest parade in town and "the oldest such observance in the San Joaquin Valley." That same story put attendance at 20,000 to 30,000 people a year. The City's 2024 release went further:
"The Porterville Veterans Parade is one of the largest in the Central Valley and the longest-running in the nation."
The research behind this post found no independent record confirming the national claim. The valley-wide claim comes from the town's paper of record. Both come from local sources, and both depend on counting from 1919.
Main Street Is Already Decorated for It
This year the parade falls during Porterville's combined Porterville 100 and America 250 celebration, and the "250 Years of Valor" theme matches it. The City's centennial page lists the Veterans Day Parade on Nov. 11 between Pioneer Days on Oct. 3 and the Zalud House Christmas Tours on Dec. 12.
Seven historical U.S. flags already hang along the Main Street corridor: the Liberty Tree, Gadsden, Bennington, Betsy Ross and 15-star flags, the Lewis and Clark "Indian Peace Flag," and a 31-star flag from 1851 that marks California's admission as the 31st state. Parade spectators along Main will be standing under them. The City also says Porterville College Art Club students are working with the City Heritage Committee on patriotic murals that "will soon appear" downtown. The page doesn't say whether any are finished yet.
The City's activity calendar notes that dates and events can change, so check the City and Chamber listings before Nov. 11. As of today, the confirmed plan is the pageant at Porterville Auditorium on Oct. 24, the race from City Hall at 7:30 a.m. on Nov. 11, and the 108th parade on Main Street at 10 a.m.
At Sean Harper Real Estate, we keep a close eye on Porterville's calendar, and we're happy to talk with you about any of it, Veterans Day included. If you'll be downtown for the run or the parade and want to talk through what's happening around Main Street, Let's Connect.
