New route for Los Lunas Fourth of July parade; new celebration activities

LOS LUNAS — The village of Los Lunas is shaking things up this year for its annual Fourth of July parade and celebration.

Due to ongoing construction on the Main Street river bridge, the village will be utilizing a new route for this year’s parade. It will begin at 9 a.m., Tuesday, July 4, at Los Lunas High School on Emilio Lopez Road, traveling east on Main Street, then south on N.M. 314, and ending at Daniel Fernandez Memorial Park.

The last time any of the annual parades in Los Lunas saw a route change was in 2020 for the Christmas Light parade, also due to road construction.

Recreation supervisor Matthew Jaramillo said this year they begin at LLHS and end at the park. He said this route will be better for several reasons.

“There’s a lot more space in the high school for float lineup. In 2020, when we began at Daniel Fernandez Park, all the floats were kind of scattered through the whole parking lot but, at the high school, we’ll have one long strip of pavement to line up floats,” said Jaramillo.

Starting at the high school will also save energy for both participants and personnel, as the path to the park is at a decline, so instead of having people walk uphill they can send people down.

This year’s route is also unique in that it has a detour route for traffic. The detour utilizes Trujillo, Los Lentes, Morris and Camelot road to allow traffic to bypass the parade and still get around town.

“Typically, we don’t have a detour route because the parade usually runs over the Main Street bridge, which cuts off many detour options, so I would highly recommend people to check out our route flier for this year,” Jaramillo said. “The detour will definitely ease congestion and allow anybody in town to go wherever they want to be, other than the areas within the parade. So if you want to get to the other side of town or Isleta, you definitely can with this route.”

This year’s parade route will also be a bit shorter. Jaramillo said it will be about 3/4 the distance it usually is.

“Time wise, it will last two hours. I would say less than a fourth of it is missing, so it’s not as long as it would normally be, but it’s still a good chunk,” he said. “I feel good about it though. It’s definitely all we could do without crossing the bridge.”

This year’s Fourth of July celebration at the Los Lunas Sports Complex from 4-10 p.m. is also seeing some new additions.

Jaramillo said this will be their first year having a car show as well as an archery tag tournament hosted by the Los Lunas Open Space Division.

Open Space supervisor Pat Jaramillo describes archery tag as a game similar to dodgeball except instead of a ball, it utilizes foam-tipped arrows.

“People who attend the celebration can sign up at around 4 p.m. to compete in teams of five. The cost is $25 per team — $5 per person,” said Pat. “We’ll have bunkers set up in one of the two soccer fields. It will be double elimination, so there will be two rounds.”

The tournament will have a jackpot system, so half of the money from the entry fees will go toward the winning team and half will go toward Open Space Division scholarships for kids in need.

Pat Jaramillo says they plan on beginning the tournament at around 4:30 p.m., and they hope to have as many teams as possible.

This year’s celebration will have live music, a ton of vendors, food, merchandise as well as a beer garden. The firework show will begin at 9 p.m.

“I hope everyone is excited and brings their A-game to the parade. I think it’s going to turn out to be a great Fourth of July parade and great day in general, celebration included,” said Jaramillo.