Park Cities honors high wheeler as parade grand marshal
High-wheeler Jim Whorton may have put away his bike, but that won’t stop him from riding in this year’s Park Cities Fourth of July Parade.
The former Marine with a love of patriotism, freedom, and his country has been named 2025 parade grand marshal, an honor he never expected to receive.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to reach that point,” he said at a Rotary Club of Park Cities luncheon honoring him, adding that the joy of past parades has “just touched my heart.”
For almost five decades, Whorton has ridden through the streets of the Park Cities on the cherry-red, high-wheel bike he bought from a store in Longview in 1975. From close to 5 feet up, he’s looked down at the children and flags lining the parade route.
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“It’s the greatest day of the year in the Park Cities, our parade. It’s really hard to beat,” former grand marshal Kirk Dooley said while introducing Whorton. “And Jim Whorton has been a part of every parade I’ve ever seen.”
Whorton learned to love parades growing up more than 300 miles west of Dallas in Tahoka, Texas. He came across his antique penny farthing in a bike shop while he was working for the Ford Motor Company.
“It looked like it was mine when I first saw it,” he said. “Because I fell in love with it.”
He’s come off the bike three times, Whorton told the Rotary Club, including once when kids threw water balloons that locked up his axle. The parade didn’t stop that year, and neither did Whorton.
“About four or five people picked the body up, put it back on top, (and said) ‘You’ve got to finish the parade, son,’” he laughed.
One year, Whorton had another close call in the toughest part of the parade, the slope on Beverly Drive that he calls “the Beverly hill.” When he got to the top of the hill, he looked down at his bike and saw that all the bearings in his front wheel were dropping out. Later, his mother wrote a story called “Jimmy Lost His Bearings.”
One of Whorton’s favorite parade memories was riding close to the United States Marine Band. He appreciates the parade’s patriotism; other things going on in the country, he said, matter less during the parade.
“It seems like all that’s in the background,” Whorton explained. “We’re holding the flags up. We’re pro-America.”
While Park Cities residents know Whorton as their high wheeler, his adventures also include decades of service with the Scouting America, where he was an assistant scout master with Scout Troop 70, helped run high adventure camps, and served as a scuba coach in six national jamborees.
Whorton has assisted on dig sites across Texas as a member of the Dallas Archaeological Society, traveled to 70 countries, and worked for the State Fair of Texas for the past 25 years, where he’s answered questions including whether Big Tex wears underwear.
This will be Whorton’s 50th parade in a streak that was only interrupted twice, once by a severe storm, and once by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Jim Whorton’s devotion to the Park Cities and the larger Dallas community has advanced the lives of many,” Highland Park Mayor Will C. Beecherl read in a proclamation from the town of Highland Park and city of University Park during the luncheon. “Therefore, we are proud to honor Jim Whorton for his profound and lasting contributions to our community.”
