AURORA -- Tom Gillach is humbled by being selected grand marshal of Aurora's Independence Day parade July 3, and he feels others are more deserving. But the members of the community group Celebrate Aurora worked hard on convincing him. "I had a lot of pressure," he good-naturedly told the Mesabi Tribune.
Gillach will ride in the parade through the neighborhoods of Aurora, a "hybrid" version of the parade that customarily went down the main street.
Gillach has long been a diehard supporter of the East Range city where he grew up and was a longtime teacher and coach in the Aurora-Hoyt Lakes, then Mesabi East schools. "I taught science and social studies, health and phy ed was was the head coach of seven sports."