The Sconi

Kiel officials moved to cancel the city’s Memorial Day Parade over safety concerns after authorities received a series of bomb threats.

As an alternative, local organizers worked together to stage a Memorial Day March as a way of still showing support for service members.

“When it comes to Memorial Day, our vets and our military, they throw themselves into the line of fire every single day,” Jeanette Deschene, an organizer of the Kiel Memorial Day March, told WBay.com. “This is the least that we can do. To stand up and say we’re not going to be bullied. This is a day to honor them.”

In all, about 100 people met at the Busty Lush pub in Kiel on the morning of May 29 and marched to Veteran’s Memorial Park along a route that mirrored the one slated for the parade.

Parade attendee Kevin Nutt was glad to see people still willing to take a stand for what they believe in.

“You’re talking about shutting down parades for the people that sacrificed for us, they didn’t run in fear from a threat. We’re not going to do the same,” he said. “These people, they need to be celebrated and heard and we’re fighting for something for a change.”

March organizers from Kiel and Manitowoc also insist the moment was a chance to come together as the city continues to deal with a Title IX investigation at Kiel Middle School, where four bomb threats were recently fielded.

“It’s been unusual, to say the least,” said Jon Bos, an attendee at the Kiel Memorial Day March. “To wake up every day, same thing. It’s not the same thing you want to wake up to. Mike [Schisel] will get to work and I would either tell him or he would tell me that there was another bomb threat or something around the lines of trying to cause a stir here in Kiel.”

Schisel is hoping Kiel March will prove to send the right message.

“There’s been obviously a little bit of divide when it comes to everything going on with the school board,” he added. “But this is meant to distract from that and remind us that we’re here together. In terms of the bomb threats, it’s been scary. Everyone is saddened that we have to wake up and hear about it every day but hopefully this starts to help heal us all.”