Lake Orion resident Bernadine Sholts will be one of 25 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network employees marching with Uncle Sam on Thursday in America’s Thanksgiving Parade.
Sholts will be ‘red, white and ‘blues? all over? as she and other Blue Cross employee volunteers and Parade Company handlers dress in matching Uncle Sam-style uniforms. Together they will help guide Uncle Sam, one of America’s best-known patriotic icons, through downtown Detroit.
The balloon is one of the parade’s tallest, measuring 45 feet high. Uncle Sam (pictured above) is filled with 3,500 cubic feet of helium, enough to fill 400,000 ping-pong balls.
The 81st parade features more than 75 units and runs down Woodward, from Mack Avenue to Congress.