A Filipino couple that has made Flandreau home for decades will be the parade marshals for Saturday’s holiday parade.
Annie and Bing Garcia have been selected to lead the parade but will be out of town that evening. Extended family will represent the Garcias.
The theme for this year’s parade that begins at 6 p.m. is “It’s a Small World,” celebrating the cultures in Flandreau. The Garcias are part of that story of families from a number of cultures who live here, said Emily Firman Pieper, parade organizer.
Floats for the Saturday’s parade may register up until the event with lineup taking place behind the Moody County Courthouse facing west.
Awards will be given for best use of theme, best business float and best youth float.
Annie Garcia moved here in 1984, after living in Saudi Arabia a handful of years, to take a job as a nurse’s aide at Riverview Manor. She was invited by Louella Janklow Nace who started the facility about 30 years prior. Garcia’s immediate family joined her a year later, and nieces and nephews have since moved to Flandreau, as well, many taking jobs at the nursing home.

She has a son, Abet, who lives in Flandreau, and two daughters, one in Minnesota and one in Iowa.
Garcia, who is in her 70s, now works at the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe’s clinic but is perhaps best known for her eggrolls that she and her family sell at local festivals. It’s an idea she got when she took eggrolls to her job at the hospital, and Dr. Gary Bruning told her she could make money selling them. She gave it a try with equipment in her own kitchen.
“Now I have three fryers,” she said. “I do make it with love.”
Garcia, who left her home country because of poverty conditions, wanted to come to the United States so her children could get good educations.
“Only people who have money there can go to college,” she said. “I just believe it’s just my faith to come over here.”
She stayed because she liked the community.
 “It’s a small town. People are so kind. I just feel I was accepted in this town,” she said.
Before the parade, the Team of Angels will have a soup cook-off at Rescue Church beginning at 4:30 p.m.
Contact Marty Skroch at 553-0869 or Holist Sutton at 530-7064 to enter the contest. Cost will be $6 for sampling the soups, dessert and a beverage.