Witchy Mayor Wheaton and Her Coven Make Historical Changes to Christmas Parade That Suppress Religious Speech. Community Organizes a Competing Event

Pastor Jimmy Fortunato spends a lot of time on parade floats every December. The pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Cookeville has especially looked forward to participating in the Cookeville Christmas Parade that, as we have previously reported, Mayor Laurin Wheaton bullied private citizens and church leaders to give up so she could hand control to two local activists who identify as witches (we wish we were joking). But for the first time in the five years Fortunato has been involved, he learned that parade organizers have banned participants from handing out literature, a rule that he sees as specifically directed at participating churches. 

“If you don't want the gospel to go out, you can always find a reason that will hide your real reason,” said Fortunato. “You know, we don't want the trash on the ground. We don't want the cleanup. If we say yes to one, we're going to have to say yes to all. But historically, our town has come to expect the Christmas parade to look a certain way. And historically, in the past, churches have had the liberty to pass out gospel literature.”

Both Monterrey and Algood, two Cookeville-adjacent cities in Putnam County, do not prohibit participants from handing out religious tracts. In fact, Fortunato has boxes of them ready for dispersal at Algood’s parade this evening. 

According to multiple sources with whom The Pamphleteer has spoken over the last week, parade participation is down 40-50% with many community groups pulling out after they learned that Mayor Wheaton appointed local activist Sam Raper of Cookeville Inclusive to the parade board. Prone to expletive-filled political posts and public identification as a witch, Raper and another local witch activist, Montana “The Maker” Chambers, who owns the occult shop The Tiny Cloak, have spent the last few weeks reveling in what both have referred to as their takeover of the parade. 

In addition to The Tiny Cloak’s float, Cookeville’s Christmas Parade under Wheaton’s leadership will feature, as several sources confirmed, a presence from Inclusive Cookeville, Upper Cumberland Pride, The Queer Closet (a group that gives clothes to trans people that many locals fear is targeting kids behind parents’ backs), and the Upper Cumberland TN Secular Council.

But Mayor Wheaton and her team don’t want constituents to know that. It’s why the official list of parade participants has not been released as of press time. “Their method of operation this year seems to be to withhold information,” Fortunato said. “We had to attend a mandatory meeting for all parade entries, and they are withholding putting out a public list of the parade attendees, so they just read them off at the meeting.”

Mayor Wheaton’s subterfuge began long before she invited Raper and her activist contingent to fundamentally transform the event. Multiple sources reported that Mayor Wheaton and Putnam County Superintendent Corby King strong-armed the private citizens who originally applied for permits into turning the event over by refusing to allow schools to participate. Then, the city council’s action to assume control of the parade was added to the October 24th meeting agenda during the session with the vote rammed through in the last two minutes. The agenda available to the public makes no mention of the parade, which became item “7L.” Obviously, the citizens of Cookeville had no chance to voice their opposition. 

The Pamphleteer has reached out to Mayor Wheaton numerous times over the past month with multiple questions, including who added the agenda item. She still cannot be reached for comment. 

Mayor Wheaton, Raper, and Chambers may disagree with Fortunato’s assessment that, “This is not traditionally what our town has come to expect this parade to be,” but the evidence is firmly on his side. Though Raper refers to Cookeville Inclusive as a local “army of love” over one-thousand strong, a quick glance at the private Facebook group confirms that a substantial number of its members don’t live in Cookeville or even Putnam County. Likewise, there is little evidence that the over $4,000 Chambers raised for Cookeville Inclusive on GoFundMe to start an inclusive parade came from locals. Curiously, Chambers has, by all accounts, not refunded the money to donors after Mayor Wheaton gave her and Raper the reigns to the city’s parade. Given the air of shameless self-promotion Raper and Chambers have brought to the event, it seems that personal enrichment may rival equity as Cookeville Inclusive’s primary mission. 

While sources familiar with the matter have told The Pamphleteer that efforts to recall Wheaton and draft new candidates to run for council in 2026 are already underway, over eighteen local churches have come together to host a Happy Birthday Jesus party in Downtown Cookeville on Saturday, December 21st. Spearheaded by Kelly Parkison, whose husband, Scott, is the pastor of Cookeville’s Stevens Street Baptist Church, the intra-denominational event will feature bounce houses, train rides, balloon animals, a snow land, Christmas characters, and a live nativity. In addition, the organizers will be selling handmade Christmas ornaments with all proceeds benefiting victims of Hurricane Helene in the Appalachian Region. 

According to Parkison, the parade controversy was the primary motivation for her to orchestrate the event so Cookeville residents could have a family-friendly atmosphere unburdened by culture-war politics. “I was praying for our city,” Parkinson said. “I felt a burden to do this for our city.” Inspired by her family’s tradition of throwing a birthday party for Jesus, Parkison hopes that the event can provide a space for Cookevillians to celebrate the season's true meaning. “This would not have happened without the generosity and support of other local churches,” she said.

More info about the Happy Birthday Jesus party can be found on the event’s Facebook page.