Scroggins Will Lead Parade
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Michael Scroggins
WATER VALLEY – The Water Valley Area Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce that Michael Scroggins has been selected as the Grand Marshal of the 2025 Water Valley Christmas Parade.
You could say Michael has been part of the heartbeat of Water Valley for almost fifty years, although he would never describe himself that way. He tends to shrug and say he has just been doing his job. But when a man starts working for the city at eighteen and stays long enough to serve under eight mayors, through ice storms, floods, tornadoes, airport mishaps , and everything else this town has weathered, the rest of us get to say it for him.
Christmas is a time for family stories, and Michael remembers the days when he was a child growing up here. He remembers the excitement of coming onto Main Street when the decorations went up. “Everybody came to Main Street,” he said. “Watching the Christmas parade and enjoying the community, the fellowship.” He remembers store windows glowing in the cold air and says,
“All the stores decorated their windows up really nice inside.” He especially remembers Western Auto. “They always had a Santa Claus,” he said, and the memory still makes him smile.
He went to Christmas parades as a boy and never forgot the feeling. “I went to quite a few of them,” he said. “It was fun seeing all the floats. All the churches and community got involved with it. And seeing who could get the most candy.” At home, Christmas morning had its own rhythm.
“We opened presents on Christmas Day,” he said, “but the night before , we were up sneaking in there to see what Santa Claus left under the tree.” His family served turkey and dressing, and the whole family gathered around the table. “Most all the family was together,” he said, and that togetherness is still what he treasures most.
Those childhood memories followed him into adulthood. When he started with the city in 1976, he found the holiday season looked a little different from the inside. “It was strange,” he said. “It brought some of your child memories out of you as a kid, but then you were still making everything work for the city. Working for the city was one of the best Christmases, I guess.” It gave him a new appreciation for the season. “You see how people really are,” he said. “You appreciate the hard work that is put out to make an event like the Christmas Parade.”
Michael started with the city reading water meters, and he laughs now at how grueling those first weeks were. His feet stayed swollen , and he learned quickly that seniority mattered, and the older guys expected you to prove yourself. His first pay was $3.25 an hour, and after a brief detour to Holley Carburetor, which he describes as feeling like being put in jail, he came right back to the city.
Over the years, he picked up just about every job a person can do for a town. Water and sewer, sanitation, streets, airport manager, volunteer firefighter, cemetery superintendent , and finally the man who knew every ditch, every back road, every tree limb that needed trimming , and every family’s burial plot by heart. He says he did not know anything about streets when former mayor Hamric Henry put him in charge, but he went to class after class and learned from the older workers who had already seen everything twice.
He talks with affection about every mayor he has served under and remembers their quirks as well as their leadership. He can tell you which ones surprised the crew by appearing without warning, which ones rode with him after storms, and which ones would go to bat for the workers every time. The stories say as much about Michael as they do about the mayors themselves.
When he pictures Water Valley at Christmas, the first image that comes to mind is simple and familiar. “Coming into Water Valley and seeing it lit up with all the Christmas lights and decorations makes you really get excited,” he said. “You always hoped we would have snow on top of it.”
When asked what it meant to be chosen as Grand Marshal, he paused for a moment and said, “Personally, I think it was an honor for me. I never thought that I would be. My heart has been in this city for all these years. I look to help others, not myself.”
This year, as the lights come on along Main Street and the parade lines up on December 12, it feels right to honor someone who has spent his life taking care of the places where our Christmas memories happen. The parks where children run before the parade starts. The streets where the floats roll by. The cemetery where families gather and remember those who loved this town long before us.
Michael Scroggins has given Water Valley nearly fifty years of steady hands and a steady heart. So when you see him at the front of the parade this year, give him a wave that carries a little gratitude with it. He has earned it.
And knowing Michael, he will still tell you he was just doing his job.
