Stock image of bagpipers during a St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City and not the mayor of Dysart.

What’s being touted as “Iowa’s shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade” by Dysart Mayor Tim Glenn, is set to briefly march down Dysart’s Main Street beginning – and quite possibly ending – at 12:15 p.m. on Thursday, March 17.

At the conclusion of the regular Dysart City Council meeting on Wednesday, March 9 – and following a battery of agenda items from adoption of next year’s budget to the continuing struggle to hire an aquatic manager – the mayor injected a dose of lighthearted levity into the meeting by proposing the possible new parade to the council.

“Now, moving on to the most exciting part [of the meeting] – the St. Patrick’s Day parade!” Glenn said, eliciting an enthusiastic response from the council members.

The mayor told the council the parade will start at Main and Wilson streets and end one block later at the Main Street Gorge – a public art installation painted on the street that begins halfway down the block and ends at Clark Street.

Drinks for both adults and children will be available, Glenn said.

The idea is the result of a brainstorming session between the mayor and local business owner Jenna Scott of Harper’s Public House.

Area merchants are being invited to participate in the public parade which will take place during the Union Community School District’s spring break week.

The mayor asked Dysart’s Chief of Police Joe Hols to lead the parade and the fire department to contribute a truck to which Dysart Ambulance Service Director Julie Scadden quipped amid council laughter, “A fire truck? From Wilson [Street] to the gorge? That’s one fire truck!”

“There will be staging,” the mayor responded with a grin.

The mayor was then asked if a bagpiper would be part of the parade.

“I’ve asked for bagpipes for Christmas the last three years and I haven’t gotten them,” Glenn said. “We’ll have [music piped] through the speakers.”

Although the mayor declined to close city offices during the parade nor make it a “national holiday” despite a request from the public in attendance, he did end the meeting on a lighthearted note.

“The Protestants can wear orange.”