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The Nutter Butter Parade has been a part of the annual Peanut Butter Festival Parade in Brundidge for 30 years and counting. Very seldom has an individual been named as the parade grand marshal.

However, Annette Johnston Mitchell, of California, was honored as the grand marshal of the 2023 Peanut Butter Festival Parade. She is the daughter of  J.D. Johnston, who, in 1928, made commercial peanut butter in a  wood frame building on a Brundidge backstreet. The J.D. Johnston Peanut Butter Mill churned out more than two million jars of peanut butter a year  during the Great Depression. The mill provided jobs, income and an affordable source of protein for Brundidge residents, helping sustain the town throughout the Great Depression.

Johnston said she was honored to be the grand marshal of the parade that pays  tribute to the peanut butter industry and acknowledges the role her dad played.

“Being here is like coming home again,”  Mitchell  said,  “And, to be grand marshal of the parade and share this experience with my son, John (Jay) Mitchell and his daughter Misty Mitchell there is no way to express what this means to me and my family. It is so good to be back home.”