AMHERST - The annual Memorial Day parade will begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday as usual from the Town Common and wind its way from North Pleasant Street to Triangle Street for a ceremony at the War Memorial Pool.

If it rains, the parade will be cancelled and ceremonies will take place at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall on Main Street, where they were held last year.

Town Manager Paul Bockelman will serve as master of ceremonies.

Rob McAllister, who earned a Purple Heart as well as the Bronze Star with Valor, will speak. As a member of the Airborne Long-Range Surveillance and Reconnaissance team, he participated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Veterans Director Steven Connor, state Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose, D-Amherst, and Select Board member Connie Kruger are also scheduled to speak.

The Hopkins Academy marching band from Hadley could not attend the event this year, according to Scott McAllister from the Veterans Services office in Northampton.  The Amherst Regional High School Chorale is scheduled to sing. 

Amherst is part of Central Hampshire Veterans' Services, which also includes Chesterfield, Cummington, Northampton, Pelham and Williamsburg.