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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Leaders plan for float in inaugural parade

Sunday, June 22

GW may have a float in the presidential Inaugural Parade this January for the first time in almost 60 years, Student Association president Vishal Aswani said last week.

The University is one of few schools eligible to participate in the parade because it was chartered by Congress in 1821. The parade takes place Jan. 20 and travels from the Capitol building to the White House to honor the incoming president.

Aswani said Tim Miller, executive director of the Student Activities Center, was asked to pitch the idea of a GW parade float to the SA.

“GW hasn’t participated in the Inaugural Parade in a while and it’s about damn time,” said Aswani, a senior. “We are qualified by being a chartered institution by Congress.”

A committee of students, faculty and staff will be formed this summer to recruit and coordinate GW students who wish to design the float. Those interested in designing the float will be able to submit entries to the committee, which will choose a float design in October, Aswani said.

Once the results of the election are released in November, the committee will submit the float design to the Presidential Inaugural Committee for approval.

The last time GW had a float in an inaugural parade was in 1949 for President Harry Truman. It was designed and built by The Hatchet, prior to its independence.

“It was dusk when the float came down toward the Presidential stand,” wrote then-University president Cloyd Heck Marvin in a letter to Hatchet editor Frank Simmons. “The lighting of the float, as it was softened in the lowering darkness, made the float stand out as no other float stood out.”

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