It was cold leading up to Mardi Gras 2005, year 14.  Mardi Gras fell early, on Feb. 8th, making it difficult to pull everything together.  The Krewe decided to add a small event on the preceding Friday and arrived at City Hospital at 2PM in costume to parade the nursing facility.  Billy Zydeco Band were there with King Dan Kerlin on washboard, Mike Sumler on accordion, and Stevie Ward on guitar, other members of the Krewe played tambourines.  The entire ensemble played, danced and threw beads in the dining room,  then trouped off, parading the halls and rooms of the facility for the benefit off those less mobile patients.  The event was a great hit with the residents, and four months later we were told that many were still wearing the beads they received that day.  It was also a great hit with the Krewe and has been added as an annual event.

Saturday the 5th dawned crystal clear and warmed up nicely, in spite of concerns about the weather on such an early date.  The difficulties that had been experienced in previous years with too few volunteers proved to not be a problem. The local population turned out and provided the Krewe with enough barricade workers and walkers to handle their needs.  The only shortage was personnel on the early shift to maintain the parking lot at the end of the parade route and A. J. Bellard agreed to man the position in exchange for booth space, an arrangement that worked out quite well for all.  With Joe Fennel in the lead, the parade rolled at 1:00PM sharp.  Krewe Olympia could not participate this year in a float way but turned out in costume to walk and throw beads.   The barricade workers received tie dye tees in purple, green and gold with the Demented Krewe logo on the front and ‘EVENT STAPH’ on the back. They were pressed into service after the parade to do the judging of floats.  They gave the award for the year to Krewe Copeland, who had an elaborate bandstand and large zydeco ‘orchestra’.  Former Queen Jean Button flew high atop the NWA Sign Shop’s decorated bucket truck, throwing beads to the masses.  A crowd of thousands had turned out and  a couple of hours were spent after the parade at the end of the route with beads being thrown and bands on various floats playing music.  The event had gone off smoothly for the Krewe and provided great enjoyment to the attendees.

Mardi Gras, the 8th was forecasted to have rain, which reduced the turn out only slightly.  There was one ten-minute downpour, but the weather remained otherwise amenable.  The Krewe met at Jose’s for a grand dinner and at 8PM paraded forth to the stage at Jose’s Streetside where they crowned King Charlie Platt and Queen Chaddy Kumpe (who spent a good bit of the night buying drinks for the musicians up and down the street).  They paraded with grand style and regal demeanor.  Due to limited time and significant club participation only contributing clubs were paraded this year.  The Krewe landed at 10:30PM at the Gypsy.  This year finally enabled us to make plans for an annual charitable donation, the recipient of which will be decided by the current year’s royalty, payment to be delivered at the Fat Saturday Parade of the following year.  Our King and Queen for 2005 chose the Humane Society as their charity of choice.