MARQUETTE, Mich.—Two local groups are leading an effort to break the Guinness World Record for the “Largest Skateboard Parade.” The parade will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 10, in the Whitman Hall parking lot at Northern Michigan University. It is hosted by the NMU Skate and Snow Club and the Marquette Informal Longboarding Foundation.

           To break the record, more than 250 people must participate in the parade on any type of skateboard. Organizers said they expect to shatter the mark because many skateboard groups from the Midwest and East Coast have indicated they will participate alongside a number of Michigan groups and NMU students.

The day-long event will feature live music, prizes, giveaways, a costume contest, dance-off and two games of S.K.A.T.E.

Registration for the parade begins at 11 a.m. in the Whitman Hall parking lot. The first 250 people to register will receive a free commemorative t-shirt. The event is funded in part by the NMU Student Finance Committee. For more information visit Facebook.com/MQTMILFs or e-mail Jeremy Johnson at JerJohns@nmu.edu.

 

NOTE: According to Russell Magnaghi’s A Sense of Time: The Encyclopedia of Northern Michigan University, three other Guinness World Record attempts have taken place on the NMU campus. During the 1977 Homecoming celebration, 1,674 people participated in the “largest game of musical chairs.” The mark was short-lived and Northern never made it into the record book. At 1978 Homecoming, the “world’s largest pasty” was baked in a special oven and consisted of 250 pounds of beef, 400 pounds of potatoes, 75 pounds of carrots and 25 pounds of onions wrapped in 250 pounds of dough. During Marquette's FinnFest in 1996, the “world’s largest sauna” was created on the north end of Memorial Field. Nearly 660 people packed into a tent heated to 121 degrees.