By KAITLYN ALANIS

Staff writer

Longtime Florence native Carolyn Spencer remembers watching the Florence Labor Day parade each year with family and friends, and she never once thought that maybe one day she, too, would be grand marshal.

“No, no, no,” Spencer, 73, said. “I never expected it.”

So when she and her husband Edmond Spencer, 76, heard a knock on their door, the last thing they expected was someone on the other side to inform them they are this year’s grand marshals.

“My husband and I were both surprised,” she said. “I felt it was an honor and it means a lot.”

The Spencers have owned Town and Country Cafe in Florence for about 20 years, but before Carolyn was an owner, she was a waitress.

“Oh, I’ve always loved it,” she said. “This is home. That’s all I have to say.”

It was that job as a waitress that led her to Edmond, who had moved from Oklahoma to Florence for work in nearby oil fields.

“I met her when she was a waitress here, and it’s my wife who kept me here,” he said. “And since my wife was born and raised here and since we’ve been a business here so long, it is kind of exciting.”

Carolyn, a self-declared proud resident of Marion County, said that while Edmond may not have been born in Florence, he might as well have been.

“He’s been here long enough that he is almost a native,” she said. “And I’ve always loved Florence. Marion County is a wonderful county to be from. You name it, and it’s wonderful. Everything here is so wonderful.”

The parade, which is themed “Flashback to the past 80 years,” will take place 11 a.m. Monday on Main Street.