For an Irish guy in Morris County, there is no better birthday gift than the one Rich Smith just got.
The phone rang last week and the caller, Pete Ecklund of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, asked if Rich was willing to serve as Grand Marshal of the 2012 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Morristown.
“That was a nice morning,” said Rich, whose 61st birthday will go down as one of his better ones.
The news surely would have thrilled Rich’s maternal great grandmother, who always insisted she lived a stone’s throw from Blarney Castle in County Cork.
That side of the family emigrated to America in the late 19th century. Rich said his father was half-Irish, though his paternal grandfather “swore he was an Irishman through and through.”
The ancestry is really irrelevant, however. What counts is that Rich has been active on the parade committee ever since the event moved from Wharton to Morristown in 1991. He has been the parade’s co-chair, chairman of its finance committee, and its unofficial goodwill ambassador.
He also is a “Founding Father” of the local chapter of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and an active member of the Irish American Association of Northwest New Jersey. The two organizations jointly organize the privately funded parade, which has raised thousands of dollars for local charities.
“It’s good to be thought so well of by my peers. I’ve always been involved (in Irish organizations) ever since Jimmy Dangler got the party going in the 1980s,” said Rich, referring to the late funeral director who served as a commentator for the parade, a tradition carried on by Jimmy’s daughter, Chrissy.
While the Grand Marshal recognition is “awesome,” Rich said that never was his reason for working on the parades.
“The goal was to have a good time with my friends,” he said. And of course, “It’s great to get some good recognition for our Irish culture.”
Next year’s parade, scheduled for March 10, will mark the 34th year for the Morris County event in modern times. But its Morristown roots stretch to 1780, when a grateful Gen. George Washington allowed his Irish soldiers to stage the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade since the colonies declared independence.
The only other colonial St. Patrick’s Day parades occurred in New York in 1762 and Philadelphia in 1771, said Rich, who established Smith Surveying Inc. in Morristown in 1980, shortly after marrying his wife, Mary Ann. Their daughter, Katie, 28, works at a school for the deaf and their son, Richard III, 22, a recent graduate of Hofstra University, has worked for his father since age 14.
Born in Newark’s Vailsburg section, Rich lived in Madison, Florham Park and Morristown before settling in Morris Township. He is a graduate of Hanover Park High School in East Hanover.
One of the advantages of being Grand Marshal is actually getting to watch what is billed as New Jersey’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade, from a front-row seat in the reviewing stand outside the Presbyterian Church on the Green. Members of the parade committee usually are too busy attending to a thousand details to observe much of the parade itself.
The Grand Marshal tends to need a chair by Parade Day. Starting in January, weekends are packed with official functions and ceremonies. And the week before the parade is non-stop action, starting with a gala dinner.
“My primary advice to him is: Enjoy the experience. It passes quickly,” said Willie Quinn, this year’s Grand Marshal. “You have to savor it as you’re going through it.”
Willie said he was delighted that the parade committee tapped Rich to succeed him.
“He’s beyond description!” Willie said. “Rich is a very gregarious, enthusiastic, spirited individual. He’s very much into his Irish culture. He loves to have a good time.”
Toward that end, Rich made the same promise that virtually all his predecessors have made for Parade Day:
“The weather will be perfect,” he vowed.
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