Dothan’s Mardi Gras celebrations grow each year – parade rolls through city next Saturday | Local News

Many know it as boisterous street celebration with parades, masks, beads, and lots of excess, but Mardi Gras is also a Christian celebration held the Tuesday (called Fat Tuesday) before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. It is a time to celebrate prior to the more solemn observance and fasting that occurs during Lent, the six weeks leading up to Easter.

Krewe of Kolosse adopted traditions from Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile and New Orleans and basically kept what they liked from each celebration.

“We just made this up with a little bit of knowledge of how things work in Mobile and New Orleans and trying to bring the best of those traditions up here,” Hall said. “… It just took off.”

The Thalian Mardi Gras Society was actually Dothan’s first krewe, although KOK hosted the first parade. Dothan’s other Mardi Gras social clubs have names like Krewe de Fête, Mystics of the Garden, Krewe de Wu, the Mystics of Solomon Park, and the Order of the Black Dress.

With so many more krewes, Dothan now has a Mardi Gras ball season in the weeks leading up to the parade.

Some krewes are all men; some are all women. Some krewes base membership on age. Most cap the number of members they’ll accept. Membership in many of the local krewes is by invitation-only just as it is in New Orleans and Mobile, but Hall said each year it seems a new krewe forms.