This year’s Memorial Day Parade in College Point has a pretty Poppy Queen with a patriotic heritage.
Julia Elizabeth Feehan, a fifth-grader at a local Catholic school, is a talented young performance artist who enjoys acting, singing and dancing, and both her paternal and maternal grandfathers served in the U.S. Army.
“I enjoy the spotlight sometimes so it’s nice to do that and honor the soldiers at the same time,” Feehan said.
Her paternal grandfather, William Feehan, was a veteran of the Korean War who served from 1951 to 1953. He spent his professional years after 1959 as a New York City firefighter until he lost his life as a first deputy fire commissioner responding to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Feehan’s maternal grandfather, Bob Fetonte, served in the U.S. Army in 1961 and was honorably discharged.
Julia’s father, John, was also involved in public service, serving as a corpsman in the Army Reserve from 1999 to 2003 with Fleet Hospital in Fort Dix. He is now a chief in the FDNY.
The grand marshal of the parade will be Army veteran Louis A. Di Agostino. Di Agostino was awarded the Military Order of the Purple Heart after serving in the Korean War, and he will be leading the way for marching bands, members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the First Reformed Church, among other youth groups and service organizations.
The parade is set to start at 2 p.m. on May 24.
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