At left: In his 36th consecutive year of leading Mackinac Island's annual Lilac Festival Parade Sunday, June 15, Donald "Duck" Andress proudly displays his Native American regalia and American flag. Behind him are fellow tribal members Carl Andress, Tony Miron, and John Perrault, who finished the parade on foot after his horse became skittish. It was at least 30 years since Bob Hughey last enjoyed Mackinac Island's Lilac Festival parade, but last Sunday, June 15, he was featured in it as the grand marshal.

Mr. Hughey, who now resides in St. Ignace with his wife, Pat, has a storied past on Mackinac Island, beginning in 1943, when, at 17, he arrived from Boyne City with only $7 in his pocket and high hopes of finding a job. He was soon the night watchman at Grand Hotel, and the hotel provided him with a room at the William Backhouse Astor cottage on Cadotte Avenue.

"It was the most beautiful room I've ever stayed in," said Mr. Hughey, now 82. "I thought they made a mistake, that's how nice it was."

He opened Little Bob's Restaurant on Astor Street in October 1948. It boasted dollar dinners, fast service, and "World Famous Key Lime Pies."

Bob Hughey, grand marshal for the 59th annual Lilac Festival Parade. The restaurant was a landmark on Mackinac Island for nearly 50 years, closing in 1994.

"That restaurant is badly missed," said Jeannette Doud, local historian and correspondent for The St. Ignace News. "Many families still come to the Island and look for it. It was such a wonderful place."

Bob Hughey also owned the Captain's Table restaurant, on the corner of Astor and Main, now the site of May's Fudge, and operated the Fort Mackinac Tea Room.

He was one of the few sponsors of the inaugural Lilac Day Parade in 1949, when there were only a few floats, two bands, and no more than 200 visitors to watch it. His float included his brother, Donald, dressed in loincloth, moccasins, and a western Indian chief's headdress, accompanied by three Indians on a blanket, and a deer hide fastened to poles. The float received first place, he said.

He attributes the Island's traditional event to Evangilene "Ling" Horn, a childhood friend.

"She lived her whole life on Mackinac Island and conceived the idea [of a celebration of lilacs] when she was a very young girl," Mr. Hughey wrote in a Letter to the Editor in the Town Crier last July.

Because of family responsibilities, Mrs. Horn appealed to Stella King, the Island's lay health nurse, to carry on her idea.

Mr. Hughey, who is one of 13 siblings in his family, worked his way up the business ladder by working with his parents, Eunice and Chester Hughey. He worked briefly with his mother at the local pharmacy, operated by Robert Bailey.

Mr. Hughey and his mother also made a business of feeding carriage drivers, who in those days were independent tour operators. The mother-son duo provided three meals a day for $15 a week.

His father was a dockmaster for Union Terminal Piers on the Island and, in 1944, got him a job after he finished a 23-month service as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army. He worked on the Arnold Transit Company's steamer Mackinac Islander as a deckhand.

"That was a very good job," remembers Mr. Hughey. "There was clean food and a good place to sleep."

At 21, he was elected as Justice of the Peace and served four years, describing the job as a powerful, yet compassionate, position. He later was elected to city council and then became mayor of Mackinac Island in 1961, serving two years.

"One of my favorite memories was greeting John F. Kennedy when he came to visit in June 1961," said Mr. Hughey.

A longtime businessman and promoter of the area, Mr. Hughey has also owned stores and restaurants in neighboring St. Ignace over the years, and he is known affectionately as "Little Bob" by many friends in both communities who still associate him with the restaurant on the Island.

Mr. Hughey, who was diagnosed with lung cancer last August, was nominated as the grand marshal for the Lilac Festival Parade by local resident Candy Smith, Ling Horn's daughter, because, she said, "He's always been a good Samaritan to Mackinac Island. He knows a lot about this place, and his family has been here for a long time, and was involved in the very first parade. That man would do anything for anybody."