Mission Viejo Puts on the Green : Parade: The 25th annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration Saturday marks the holiday a tad early.

Here in Mission Viejo, they parade and party early--and enthusiastically.

A parade organizer estimated that 10,000 people lined Marguerite Parkway on Saturday for this community’s 25th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade--five days before the March 17 holiday.

Bedecked in green, people arrived by car, truck, golf cart, bicycle and in-line skates for the parade on a warm, blustery day near Lake Mission Viejo.

After all, there was a grand time to be had, said Rochelle Bond, a 17-year-old Santa Margarita High School senior who is this year’s Miss Mission Viejo.

“Everyone loves a parade. They are just so much fun,” said Bond, who rode along the mile-and-a-quarter parade route waving to the crowd as bagpipes played.

Irishman Michael Timothy Brennan, bestowed with the honorary title of Lord Mayor of Orange County, agreed. Cane in hand, a key to the city around his neck and sporting an Irish cap, Brennan marched and mingled among the line of floats, bands, vintage cars and drill teams.

“It’s a great tradition,” said a smiling Brennan, 34, a resident of Lake Forest. “My family has been a part of this parade since its beginning.”

Twenty-five years ago, the parade was launched by a group of friends and members of the Mission Viejo Country Club, including Brennan’s father, Bob, Lee and Bob Ramsey, and club manager Tom Mitchell. They invited the Marine Corps band from El Toro, gathered up a line of golf carts from the club, and “everything just took off,” Brennan said.

Led by a U.S. Marine Corps color guard, the 111 parade entrants made their way from Olympiad Road to Alicia Parkway. Participating were Mission Viejo Mayor Susan Withrow and the City Council, a Mission Viejo Chamber of Commerce float, various Girl Scout and Brownie troops, Shriners from Anaheim’s El Bekal Temple, and people costumed as leprechauns and clowns.

Like Joe Elisalda of Santa Ana. Painted as Smoothie the Clown, Elisalda, 46, volunteered for his second St. Patrick’s Day parade in as many years.

“It keeps everybody happy and makes them smile,” said Elisalda, who works for the county parks department. “That’s good for them and good for all of us.”

A line of vintage Ford Mustangs motored by, courtesy of the Saddleback Mustang Assn., a group of car buffs who volunteer for public events, said Jack and Bea Dudley of Laguna Beach, who cruised along in their 1966 convertible.

“We just like to show our car off,” Bea Dudley said with a smile.

Cathy Cox of Irvine brought her two daughters, Jenny, 13, and Mary Beth, 10, and her niece, 5-year-old Laura Benington of Mission Viejo. Cox, a second-grade teacher at Mission Viejo’s Philip J. Reilly Elementary School, brought the family members to march in a group for the Friends of the Mission Viejo Library.

“I’m here to support the community and the library--and reading,” Cox said. “I’m surprised at how big an event this is.”