The Lehighton Halloween Parade will have two grand marshals this year. Gordon Ripkey and Lamont "Mike" Ebbert will share the honor for the upcoming parade.

The duo has a long history serving in administration and coaching for the Lehighton Area School District and published a book in 2013 titled "The History of Lehighton.""They did a great job with the book," said Hilbert Haas, one of the parade committee members."And they're well-liked," said Delroy Ruch, also a member.The duo had attended Lehighton High School, now the borough annex building, about the same time as parade committee member Julie Harris. Ebbert is a member of the Class of 1951. Harris and Ripkey are members of the Class of 1956.Harris promoted the grand marshals saying how Ripkey eventually became the principal at Lehighton Area High School and Ebbert the vice principal, but that Ebbert was the head football coach and Ripkey the assistant coach."They brought us our first championship," Harris said."He was an extremely successful head football coach," Ripkey agreed."Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration," Ebbert said humbly.The duo is honored to be selected as the grand marshals. They said the book took some years to write, but it was important to them to do."We are hoping to generate more interest in the history of Lehighton," Ripkey said. "Every community around here has an historical association, except Lehighton.""That's a shame," Ebbert said.Having been a history teacher, Ebbert has a strong interest in preserving local history for future generations. Ripkey was a physics teacher."He was an excellent teacher," Ebbert said.Ripkey shared some of his childhood memories of what it was like to grow up in Lehighton."I had a tremendous youth," he said, and recalled going to the swimming pool, the fair and other local attractions. "We were just kids getting together.""I'm afraid kids today, well, everything is too programmed for them," Ebbert said. Children run on scheduled activities instead of the free play of their youth.The three reminisced about their youth, their high school, their principal and their superintendent.The annex building has the words "Boys" over one entrance and "Girls" over the other. And in their day, boys actually went in their own entrance and girls in the other one. They even had some classes separately.Ebbert said the entire student body would gather together first thing on Monday mornings to hear an announcement from the Superintendent Burt Davis."You didn't hear a pin drop," Ripkey said.As far as being asked to be the grand marshals of the Lehighton Halloween Parade, Ebbert said, "I think it's an honor.""Absolutely," Ripkey said. "It's always been a well-respected parade."The Lehighton Halloween Parade will step off at 4 p.m. on Saturday. Ripkey and Ebbert will be near the front of the parade riding in a convertible, said Julie Harris, the parade committee chairwoman. The parade will be full of fire departments, bands, floats and more - a crowd pleaser as always.The book, "The History of Lehighton," written by Ebbert and Ripkey is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, as well as at the Lehighton Area Memorial Library and Lehighton True Value Hardware. It costs about $20. All of the royalties from the sale of the book goes to charity, Ripkey said. Currently, the library is the benefactor of the funds.