Submitted Photo The Yellow Submarine will be part of a float headlining this year’s North Dakota State Fair parade. The float won the Grand Marshal award in 2019, earning a return invitation.

A prize-winning entry will be returning to the North Dakota State Fair Parade later this month. And it is coming all the way from Great Falls, Mont. That’s where a Minot High School class of 1969 graduate resides.

Alan Korslien put together an entry for the 2019 State Fair Parade and the colorful float was named Grand Marshal Overall Winner. The honor included a return invitation to lead the parade the following year. However, due to the COVID-19 and the cancellation of the 2020 State Fair and parade, Korslien’s return with his float was delayed until this year.

“I build these stage props out of cardboard and usually send the contraptions over a ski jump,” said Korslien. “I’ve kind of become known as the mad doctor for building these things. I’ve been doing it for 10 or 12 years now.”

The ski jump referenced by Korslien is an annual event, the Mannequin Jump at the Showdown ski area in Montana at the end of each ski season. It’s a fun event where the entries are designed to crash and break apart on the landing.

“The yellow submarine wasn’t ready in time for the Mannequin Jump,” said Korslien. “I typically win an award for over-engineering. I worked over 200 hours to have it crash for the sake of fun.”

As it turned out, Korslien’s engineering feat was a perfect fit the Minot High School Class of ’69 entry in the State Fair Parade, 50th anniversary edition.

“It was in 1969 that the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine came out,” said Korslien. “The submarine on the float is 13 feet long and seven feet high. It was built to launch pool noodles off the top of it. In the 2019 parade we did 200 noodles. This time it will be 500. It should be quite fun.”

The pool noodles are launched more than 100 feet in the air, floating to the ground where they are gathered up by parade watchers along the route.

“It shoots four noodles at a time. You can heard kids and grown-ups let out a big scream,” laughed Korslien.

Helping the float come alive will be a stereo set-up playing Beatles music, accompanied by some very appropriately dressed participants.

“They’ll have Sgt. Pepper suits, the band uniform ones,” said Korslien.

The Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band was one of many best-selling Beatles’ albums.

Also on the entry will be an animated mock-up of the lunar lander that first touched down on the moon in 1969, complete with astronauts.

Korslien will be hauling the props that go on the float, and the sound gear, from his home in Great Falls in a 16 foot enclosed cargo trailer. Once he arrives in Minot, Korslien estimates it will take nearly two days to get the set-up completed on a large flatbed trailer and ready for the big parade.

The State Fair Parade, the largest parade in North Dakota, will be held Saturday, July 24 beginning at 9:15 a.m. The parade starts at the corner of Broadway and Burdick Expressway and runs to the fairgrounds.

Submitted Photo
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band will once again come to life on the State Fair Parade float sponsored by the Minot High School class of 1969, the year the Beatles released the popular song “Yellow Submarine”.