Suzanne Guillory felt sorry for people cooped up during the covid pandemic and decided a parade might be just the thing to brighten everyone’s spirits.
“I just thought it would be something fun during the pandemic,” she said. “We were worried about young kids and teenagers. The faces were so sad. Older people can handle things but it’s harder for young people.”
With help from other residents at the Barnett Reservoir who shared Guillory’s conviction that a Mardi Gras parade was the thing to do, the Krewe of the Rez first rolled through several neighborhoods.
That first event is still memorable to Guillory because of the smiles it brought.
“When the kids would see us coming and throw them something, they’d run out of their houses,” said Guillory, the self-appointed krewe captain who for that first parade tossed out the Mardi Gras beads she collected during her years living in New Orleans.
Now in its fifth year, the Krewe of the Rez parade is set to roll at 11 a.m. on March 1. The parade will begin on the Brandon side of the reservoir at the Waterwood subdivision and travel along Scenic Drive and some of the connected neighborhood streets in the Sunrise Point, Paradise Point and Audubon Point subdivisions.
Guillory, age 80, a member of St. Paul Catholic Church in Flowood and host of a weekly women’s Bible study at her house, still organizes the parade and builds some of the floats in her garage.
She takes phone calls about the parade, answers questions related to it and lines up participants the day it occurs. For several years, she pre-planned the lineup but now she lets it evolve as participants show up and will switch them in place if it’s necessary.
“For the most part, it’s pretty simple,” she said. “We try to keep it as uncomplicated as possible.”
Pam Harkins, who was a neighbor of Guillory’s for 38 years, plans to dress in the sequined devil costume that she once wore to a costume party and join two other participants in riding in a convertible in the parade.
“The pope will be sitting beside me and a nun will be sitting up front on the passenger side,” she said describing what sounds like the quirkiness of a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans.
The number one requirement is that participants be generous with throws. “We ask that they have a lot of trinkets to throw,” Guillory said.
Shawn Barrick, a reservoir resident, came up with the parade’s signature throw, a six inch birch cutout of a sailboat that is painted and decorated with trim donated by a Mardi Gras costume designer.
The sailboat was selected as the parade’s signature throw because it appears on signage at the reservoir.
“Each sailboat l (throw) looks different,” said Barrick, who began last September decorating the 48 sailboat throws that will be given away during this year and has already ordered 70 sailboat throws for the 2026 parade.
Guillory named Barrick queen of the krewe last year in appreciation for her help with the event. Barrick respected the honor and dressed in the manner Mardi Gras royalty are known for. She purchased an elaborate collar and mantle that another queen had worn and redesigned it for the Krewe of the Rez.
“My sorority sisters turned it into a big deal,” said Barrick, a 1992 graduate of Millsaps College who was a member of Phi Mu sorority.
“They had matching shirts made and turned out wearing them.”
This year, Barrick will ride with family members on a float that will have as its theme “Bubbles Up.” Her family plans to wear bathrobes and curlers and throw rubber ducks, small stuffed ducks, potholders with the name of the krewe, footballs, beads and more.
“My mom has 400 Ziplock bags of candy ready to throw,” Barrick said. “We didn’t participate the first year but knew after seeing the parade that year that we wanted to be part of it the next year and we have ever since.”
Along the parade route, residents will be waiting in lawn chairs in anticipation of seeing the Reservoir Police Department cars, drivers in Jeeps, cyclists on mountain bikes and floats decorated in colors of purple, green and gold pass by, Guillory said.
Residents on the route are notified about the parade by a flier that’s left at their homes and by signs. “We put out a lot of fliers and signs that say, ‘Mardi Gras is coming,’” she said.
Guillory’s granddaughter, Alena Guillory of Fayetteville, Ark., a junior at the University of Arkansas, will reign as the 2025 Queen of the Rez.
“It’s the first time I’ve put a family member in a thing like this,” Guillory said about naming her granddaughter queen. “I called and asked her, ‘Would you like to be queen of the parade?’ She was thrilled.
“I don’t normally do that, but I thought, ‘I don’t know how many more years I’ll do this.’ I couldn’t help myself.”
