New Windsor marks Memorial Day with ceremony, parade and award presentation

New Windsor marked Memorial Day with a morning ceremony, a downtown parade and a history award that tied the day’s remembrance to the town’s own recordkeeping. On Sunday, May 17, residents gathered at the Veterans Monument at the corner of Route 94 and Route 9W for a 10 a.m. service, then returned later in the day for a parade that stepped off at 2 p.m. from the New Windsor Post Office Plaza and continued down Route 94 to New Windsor School.

The ceremony opened with the Girl Scouts leading the Pledge of Allegiance and the Newburgh Free Academy Madrigals performing the national anthem. State Senator James Skoufis and New Windsor veteran Jay Jaffee were among the speakers addressing the crowd, and wreaths were placed at the memorial as the town paused to honor fallen service members. Young singer Madelynn Merced closed the service with a rendition of God Bless America.

Town Supervisor Stephen Bedetti used the occasion to present the 37th annual Nicholas Brooks Award to Town Historian Glenn Marshall. Bedetti said Marshall had transcribed town records dating back to 1763 and carried that work through the post-World War II era, preserving a paper trail that spans more than two centuries of New Windsor life. The award, created to recognize a New Windsor resident for service to the community, remains one of the town’s most visible civic honors.

The parade lineup began at 1 p.m., and the procession brought together police motorcycles, emergency vehicles, fire trucks, scout troops, marching bands, military vehicles and town highway department trucks. Town event notices said the parade honored those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and included veterans, fire departments, EMS, police, school bands and other organizations. The town also livestreamed both the ceremony and the parade on its Facebook page.

New Windsor has held Memorial Day observances in this format in recent years, with similar town notices in 2024 and 2025, underscoring how the Sunday-before-Memorial-Day tradition has become a fixed part of the town’s civic calendar. In a place where the service is built around veterans, schoolchildren, first responders and families standing together in public, the day remains one of the town’s clearest links between local history and national sacrifice.