Richard Norris wasn’t part of the original planners of what would become the annual South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade, but he joined the fledgling parade committee just a few years after it became clear that the annual event was fast becoming a South Side – and a Chicago – phenomenon.

“I’ve walked in almost all the parades ever since,” says Kevin Norris, whose father joined the original parade committee and who was one of the 17 children who were part of the original parade way back on March 17, 1979.

Now he himself serves on the committee. “I kind of followed in his footsteps,” says Norris, a Chicago police officer. “It was always so much fun. As a teenager I started to work more for the parade. I took on more responsibility.

Thirty years on, the group of West Beverly children who circled the 10900 block of South Talman and Washtenaw avenues still participate in the tiny event that has become one of the world’s largest neighborhood parades.

-- Congratulations to Mount Greenwood’s Julie Popp, the 2009 Parade Queen for the city's downtown St. Patrick's Day parade. She was selected from more than 130 contestants for the downtown parade.

The information below is designed to help parade goers plan for a festive and frazzle-free day: