This year's Grand Marshal is Bart Loiacono.  Bart has been the parade announcer at the reviewing stand for the past 25 years.  He has been hosting the parade for 25 years with the goal of making it more of an event than merely listing who is in the parade.  He did contests and all kinds of events in downtown Wheaton (Macarena contests, hula-hoop contests, etc.) in an attempt to make the event fun for families beyond just the parade.

This will be the first time Bart been unable to host the parade due to health issues in 25 years of doing it. When the Jaycees found out Bart was in Stage 4 of pancreatic cancer, we thought it would be a wonderful time to reward this community volunteer with this honor.

In addition to being the unofficial official voice of Wheaton and an entertainer for over 25 years, Bart is the owner, publisher and founder of NiteLife Magazine. He holds a position on the National Board of Directors of the Association of Free Community Papers. NiteLife has won the Circulation Verification Council's Gold Standard award for the last nine years running (2002, the first year the publication was eligible).