Miracle on Main Street: Othello makes it a Seahawk Christmas
"Seahawk Santa" Roger Ensz during the Christmas Miracle on Main Street parade last Saturday.
Charles H. Featherstone
A firework lights up a fog-filled sky on Lions Park in Othello during the long-delayed 4th of July fireworks show following the Christmas Miracle on Main Street parade last Saturday.
An Othello Fire Department truck in last Saturday's Christmas Miracle on Main Street parade.
A parade float.
Roger Ensz, "Seahawk Santa," with two elves preparing to toss candy during the Christmas Miracle on Main Street parade in Othello last Saturday.
The float carrying Othello's own "Seahawk Santa," Roger Ensz, comes down Main Street during the Christmas Miracle on Main Street Parade in Othello last Saturday.
OTHELLO — Othello City Council Member Jonathan Erickson was emphatic the fog Saturday night added something to the city’s long-delayed firework show.
“Can you see if we can order up some fog to enhance the fireworks next July?” Erickson asked during an online city council meeting Monday.
“It was pretty cool,” Mayor Shawn Logan replied. “But I would prefer to have the 4th of July on the 4th of July.”
The fireworks show, originally scheduled for Independence Day in Lions Park, but delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, was staged to great effect in the same freezing fog that flocked all of the city’s trees and was just one part of the Christmas Miracle on Main Street celebration on Saturday.
The celebration, possibly the basin’s first major outdoor shindig of the plague year, also included a parade and the lighting of the city’s Christmas tree, while crowds congregated on either side of Main Street near City Hall.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” said City Clerk Tania Morelos, who also headed the event organizing committee. “Last year, I didn’t know what to expect because it was the first year, and I didn’t know what to expect this year because of all the COVID restrictions, but we’re really happy with the turnout.”
One of the main participants in the parade was retired construction worker Roger Ensz, otherwise known as “Seahawk Santa,” who was decked out in a blue and white Santa Claus suit on one of the parade’s fancier and more elaborate floats.
“This started about five to eight years ago,” Ensz said. “My wife wanted to paint the house, and so we decided to do it in dark blue with white trim and green doors.”
Inspired by his “die hard” fan and wife, Ensz said he later got a Santa suit in Seahawk colors, and started posing for pictures with people in front of his “Seahawk House.” When the Christmas parade resumed last year, it was just natural to join as “Seahawk Santa.”
It’s all to show his support for the local team.
“Let’s go Seahawks!” He said.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
