Newtown Veterans Preparing for Memorial Day Parade

Newtown's Memorial Day parade will kick off at 9 a.m. Monday at the Commons West Building on Newtown-Yardley Road. 

Before the parade, which is organized by American Legion Post 440, there will be a memorial service at the gravesite of Morell Smith. The memorial service begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Newtown Cemetery. 

The parade will travel down Washington Avenue to Lincoln Avenue to Centre Street, where it will pause for memorial services at the Word War I monument in front of the Newtown Library.

From the library, the parade will go right onto Congress Street to Jefferson and make a left onto State Street to Borough Hall, where there will be a memorial service and speeches.

The parade will feature veterans in uniform, community groups and musicians from the Council Rock North Marching Band. 

Members of the American Legion will be selling chances for various local restaurants as a fundraiser for a Legion Post in the path of the Oklahoma tornadoes, Post Adjutant Jim Anderson said.

This year's Memorial Day Parade Grand Marshall is Dave Callahan, a member of the Morell Smith Post of the American Legion and the long-time owner of the Newtown Hardware House.

The guest speaker will be Anthony Enck, who started basic training for the Marines on September 11, 2001. He later did a fellowship with the U.S. House of Representatives Wounded Warrior Program and served in the U.S. invasion of Iraq with the 5th Marine Regiment. 

He presently works as a case worker assisting veterans with their disability claims.

According to weather.com, it will be partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid 70s on Monday.