On the Fourth of July, many Palisadians wake up early to run in the 5K or 10K race which start at 9 a.m. But Rich Wilken is up long before that because by 6 a.m. he’s at the corner of Alma Real and Ocampo, where the race starts, to make sure the streets are closed. He and his son, Matt, then patrol the route to make sure the way is clear for the runners. At the first Will Rogers race in 1978, Wilken was asked to purchase a starting gun and blanks. “I showed up a couple of minutes before the race and handed it to them,” Rich said. “‘Where have you been?’ they asked. It was before cell phones and no one had seen me for a couple of days and they were worried they wouldn’t have a pistol.” Wilken has attended 28 of the 29 years of Fourth of July races; the one year he missed it, he was in Denmark with his Boy Scout troop. After the race, Rich goes to the Palisades High School football field, where he unlocks the gates for the fireworks technicians from Pyro Spectaculars who will spend the afternoon preparing for the nighttime show. He started working on the fireworks years ago when a fellow Optimist Club member Bud Petrick asked him to help. Wilken grew up in the Palisades and, as a 10-year-old, he marched in the parade with his Boy Scout troop. When he was 14, he drove his baseball team through town, because the team coach, who was supposed to drive, never showed up. “I didn’t kill anyone, but I did get into trouble,” he said. It was his fellow Optimists John Prough, Wally Miller, Arnie Wishnick and, of course, Petrick who encouraged him to join the Palisades Americanism Parade Association (PAPA). “Once you’re on the committee, you help here, you help there,” he said. From the high school, Rich dashes to the starting point of the parade where he hands out awards to visiting VIP’s. He then makes his way to Sunset and Swarthmore and assists in crowd control, until the skydivers have landed. Early parade-goers might remember that the parade originally had one announcer, a man from Pageantry Productions. Bud Petrick eventually became the first local announcer and still anchors the show for parade watchers in the bleachers in front of Ralphs. Wilken provides commentary from one of the additional locations on the parade route. “I did it a few years with Flo Elfant,” he said. ” The past few years, I’ve worked with Cathy Wishnick the past few years. She’s good with the script. I specialize in the ad libs.” Rich often runs a mic out to a tuba player or a dignitary in a car. “One year when I handed former Honorary Mayor John Raitt the mic, he sang ‘God Bless America’.'” Once the parade passes his location, Rich returns to the Stadium-by-the-Sea to see how the fireworks set-up is proceeding, and then back to the parade route to pick up traffic barricades no longer needed and move them to the stadium. Volunteers for crowd control have been slim in the past few years, leaving Wilken and his son to set up red, white and blue plastic bunting between the barriers. After the parade is over, Rich makes a quick run home for a shower before the fireworks begin. Not only does he organize the fireworks program, from the bands playing, to the outside vendors, to arranging for small American flags to be handed out, but he also the official announcer. After he introduces the band, he gives a “stand-up” salute to veterans, followed by announcements and thank-you’s to the sponsors, initiates the National Anthem and then signals the start of the fireworks display. “It is at this time I join the crowd and sit back and enjoy the noisy and colorful fireworks display,” he said. After the display, he once again is on the move. “I put lost parents and kids back together, stack barricades, return the electric carts borrowed from the parade route, collect any donations given to PAPA people during the show, work with the Pali staff plant manager to close down the stadium, and then I go home to collapse’until the next Fourth of July.” (Rich Wilken grew up in the Palisades, was one of the first students to attend PaliHi, and, in addition to at least 29 years of volunteering for PAPA, he has been PAPA president twice. Wilken is an architect who designed Mort’s Deli, Palisades Lutheran Church Sanctuary and the remodel of Saint Matthew’s Parish Center. He was the founder and designer of the once locally well-known Wilken Surfboards company. Wilken and his wife Deann have two children.)
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