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The Grand Marshal for this year’s Karl Oskar Days parade, Wade Carlson, has already been, by default, at the heart of the parade event for years. Floats, big rigs and marching units have long used the roads surrounding Carlson’s Amoco station for line-up.   The parade was so close you could reach out and touch it.

Carlson’s Amoco isn’t in the center of town but it might as well be. The business is known as where you can get the special gas you need to run your powerboats, vintage vehicles or lawnmowers. Wally’s Wash is always busy and the service bays can handle most anything that comes along.  The fuel and heating oil business brought Wade to Lindstrom to work alongside his dad, Wally, who was the Standard Company agent for the Chisago Lakes Area since 1959.  Wade graduated from Stillwater High School, having grown up in Marine on St. Croix. He got a business degree at St. Cloud State and ultimately joined the family operation, named Wally Carlson & Sons in 1976

You will often find Wade’s office door open, so he can check in with new and longtime customers in the front,  and hear the latest town stories. 

As Grand Marshal, he is expected to be an Ambassador for the area and he is already well-practiced at this.   The Chisago Lakes School District counted him as a member of the School Board from 1998 to 2010. He was also spreading good news about the lifestyle here  talking to jobbers at Amoco conventions. Promoting the community included being among the founding families of the Lakes Free Church on Olinda Trail.

Wade says. “...building strong healthy relationships with other people to help each other and be of service...to make a difference in peoples’ lives” is high on his list of priorities.

He is especially proud of the scholarship fund he helped start as part of the Chisago Lakes Education Foundation back in 1985.

His advice to all: get involved in an area of interest to you and make a difference for the community.

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