Karen McNamara announced as the 2024 Colony Days Grand Marshal

ATASCADERO — The Colony Days Committee is proud to announce their picks for 2024’s Grand Marshal and Royalty. This year’s Grand Marshal will be Karen McNamara, who has been a fixture in Colony Days for years, and the roles of King and Queen will be filled by Don and Janey Giessinger. The couple haven’t (for the most part) missed a Colony Days parade since they started 50 years ago.

All three Atascadero citizens will be honored at the Quota of Atascadero Tea on Sunday, Sept. 29. The tea itself is invite-only but is also known as the official kick-off to the Colony Days event schedule. Everyone else from the community is invited to then celebrate McNamara and the Giessingers at the Colony Days Mixer on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at 5:30 p.m. The mixer will take place at Colony Cinemas, and plaques will be presented to the inductees. All the fun for the inductees will come to a head when they lead the Colony Days Parade on Saturday, Oct. 5.

McNamara, a Nebraska native, ended up in Atascadero after she met her late husband, Mike, at college in Missouri. Mike grew up here and wanted to return as soon as they were married in 1979. For a short amount of time, the family moved to Colorado but made their return in 2009. McNamara became a part of the Colony Days Committee herselffrom 2010 to 2023 when she stepped down to focus on her other passion project, the Atascadero Printery Foundation.

“When I came back, I decided to get involved,” McNamara said of joining the committee. “The parade was very, very small, and we had lived in a very small town in Colorado. They had an amazing couple of parades every year. They had a Christmas parade and then another parade celebrating the community during the middle of the year. They had great parades, and my sons were like, ‘This is such a small parade but such a bigger town.’ So I said, well, I’m not going tocomplain about it. I will just get on [the Colony Days Committee] and help.”

McNamara has been a part of the Colony Days Parade ever since, but she has rarely been in it herself. Instead, she’s consistently worked to help make it what it is today.

Mike and Karen had four amazing children, and it was at their request that she took over Mike’s Printery project after his passing. Under her helm, it has now turned into The Atascadero Printery Foundation. 

“He [Mike] got it going, and he was meeting with people, and then, of course, he passed away,” McNamara said. “So then in 2015 at Colony Days, as one of my duties for the day, the night before, I made a banner.”

That banner said, “Save the Printery,” and from that moment on, it has been one of McNamara’s main goals, which she is slowly but surely succeeding at.

Fifty years ago, Don and Janey Giessinger moved to Atascadero from Burbank after Don’s job owning a furniture store brought him this. Many weekends at Lake Nascimento were also a factor in falling in love with the area. The couple themselves are no stranger to the Colony Days Parade, and they’ve attended as many as they could over the last 50 years. They were even at the very first one.

“Right off the bat,” Janey says of attending the first parade. “My parents, they were there [Burbank], they moved up much later. All of our friends from high school were down there. We were just up here by ourselves thinking we’ve got to find some stuff to do. We can’t take the boat to the lake every day. The kids have got to go to school and then all the sudden it came up in the paper and it says, ‘The First Colony Days Parade.'”

Since their move here, Don and Janey have owned three different successful businesses in Atascadero. Town and Country Fashions, the A&W that used to be on Morro Road, and the much-loved 76 gas station and convenience store that still stands next to it.

“If it wasn’t for A&W, I never would have had the 76,” Don continued. “They were right next door, and that was available, sitting there empty for 10 years, as a lot, growing weeds, and I decided I said, ‘What do I’ve got to lose? I’m right next door. It maybe could work?’ It turned out to be a good location.”

The Giessingers said that the best move they ever made for their family was to move to Atascadero from Burbank and that they are looking forward to being highlighted in this year’s parade alongside McNamara.

You can find a full story on the 2024’s Grand Marshal and Royalty in the October issue of Atascadero News Magazine. 

Feature Image: The Colony Day committee have announced their 2024 Royal court (from left) Colony Day Grand Marshal Karen McNamara, and King and Queen Don and Janey Giessinger. Photo by Rick Evans