Lifelong Winslow Residents Chosen To Lead City’s Christmas Parade

The parade draws spectators and guests from around the state to enjoy what the chamber describes as “always an awesome holiday experience,” with participation from numerous businesses, clubs, organizations, churches, schools and dignitaries in the form of the unique floats and entries that join the lineup.

“It’s a gigantic event,” said Winslow Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bob Hall. “There will be over 30,000 people in town,” a staggering statistic which Hall says makes Winslow’s Christmas Parade the longest running and most attended annual event in Northern Arizona.

This year, the chamber selected as the parade’s grand marshals lifelong Winslow residents Dale and Sue Hancock.

Dale, a Winslow native, was born in 1934, and Sue in Houston, Texas, in 1939, arriving in Winslow with her parents as a child during the World War II.

“We came to Winslow in 1944. My dad had gotten a job here, and while the war was going on we moved back to Texas. Then in 1950, my dad accepted a job with the railroad and we moved back here then,” she explained. Sue graduated from Winslow High School in 1957 and later majored in English studies, which she postponed to care for her late mother who was ill. She is only 18 hours from completing her degree.

Sue laughed as she recalled being informed of their nomination. “When Bob called and said, The committee for the parade have decided that you and Dale should be the grand marshals,’ I was just silent. He asked me, ‘Are you still there?’ and I said, ‘Bob, could you repeat that for me? I don’t think I heard you correctly.’”

Chamber say they received a touching note of gratitude from the Hancocks after they announced to them the honor, thanking the chamber board and the community for their recognition.

Hall says the gesture itself was “a testament to the kind of people they are; sweet, kind, good people.”

“It’s the biggest thing Winslow does all year, that’s why we’re still in shock that we’re going to be the grand marshals. I mean, we haven’t done anything extraordinary,” Sue humbly noted.

The Hancocks are modest and unassuming about their significant support of their hometown. Their contributions to keeping the Winslow community close-knit speak for themselves: Sue served as a local 4-H leader for three years, a Cub Scout den mother for eight years, Arizona Interscholastic Association volleyball official for 13 years, on the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board for 12 years and on the Historic Preservation Board for two years.

Dale served in the U.S. Army from 1956-1958, was a Little League coach and Scoutmaster for 43 years, and a hunting safety instructor for 20 years, operated his construction firm, Dale’s Custom Building, locally for 29 years, and served two consecutive church service missions in Nauvoo, Ill.

Their efforts, according to the Hancocks, “aren’t anything spectacular, they’re just things that ordinary people do. In a small town, everybody’s involved in the community.”

Dale narrowed down his own witty explanation for the honor: “They must have run out of people,” while Sue quipped, “We’ve outlived everybody else.”

From his childhood onward, Dale has attended every Winslow Christmas Parade since the event’s inauguration in 1946. Like Sue’s father, Dale also worked with the Santa Fe, cleaning refrigerated railroad cars as a teenager. “It was a good job to have during the summertime. I was just a kid, about 15 years old,” he recalls.

The Hancocks’ roots also run deep in Winslow as entrepreneurs, with nearly all of their children supporting the local community through their own businesses. “We’ve all been self-employed. Our daughter’s husband is a plumber. Our son who died was a general contractor like his dad; he took over the business when Dale retired. And our other son, who is serving a mission for the LDS church in Pocatello, Idaho, right now, was an electrical contractor,” Sue noted.

“Our son Jeff has started and sold three businesses here in town over the past 20 years, Captain Tony’s Pizza, 3C’s Auto Body and Oxendale Auto Outlet, and all three are still going today.”

“He’s a go-getter,” Dale exclaimed.

It’s apparent that apples don’t fall far from their trees, as the skilled handiwork of Dale’s decades as a construction contractor since 1968 can be seen all over Winslow. “I don’t know that you can look in any direction and not see something that we built. My father was a contractor, and I learned a lot from him. He let me work on whatever he thought I could do,” he reflected.

Today, Dale expresses his passion for craftsmanship through woodworking, specifically hand building heirloom-quality decorative and mechanical pieces, and restoring antique furniture.

A table constructed of reclaimed barn wood graces the Hancocks’ living room, along with a collection of other period and authentic pieces staged throughout the home.

“His work is all over the town and all over this house,” Sue said affectionately.

The Hancocks are rightfully proud of one of Dale’s recently restored pieces, a bedroom dresser well over 120 years old.

“It was my grandmother’s from the late 1800s. It has the original mirror,” says Sue. “We picked it up in Sallisaw, Okla., 20 years ago, and it’s just sat out here waiting to be worked on. We finally decided to do it.”

Dale restored the piece in about three weeks. He says, “I like to see something that’s a mess and try to make it look like something. That’s what’s fun, bringing something back to how it was originally.”

Like the townspeople who nominated them this year, the Hancocks feel that they’re a part of Winslow’s community tapestry. “This is really an honor for us. We feel like we’re representing so many other families who have been here this long and have stayed here all these years, graduated school, raised their kids, and now their kids have graduated and their grandkids are going to school. We just represent a lot of other families.”