President Holland Leads Pioneer Day Parade

President Jeffrey R. Holland served as grand marshal of Utah’s 2025 Days of ’47 Parade in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 24, 2025 (Pioneer Day in Utah).

“I'm okay with the marshal part. I don't know about the grand,” he said in his characteristic humor, “but I’m honored.”

“I have ancestors that came into this valley. I’m honored because of what that tribute means, what the parade means, what the Days of ’47 mean,” President Holland said.

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Pioneer Day celebrates the Latter-day Saint pioneers who entered the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. Between that year and 1868, when the transcontinental railroad neared completion, some 60,000 to 70,000 Latter-day Saints migrated from the United States, Canada and Europe across the North American Great Plains to Utah and the surrounding regions.

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Reflecting on the sacrifice and challenges of the early pioneers, President Holland said, “To think, as I have been thinking of those pioneers, they did it with vision and perseverance and love. I’m a little emotional about all of this. We’ll have our own perseverance, if you will, to say we’re not going to let those ancestors down. We’re not going to walk away from what they did. I hope they [parade goers] come away stronger and more committed, more proud, in the appropriate sense. Proud of their ancestors. Proud of what the future holds.”

He added, “It is little enough for at least one day out of the year to look back and to see them, and then have that be the lens through which we see the future.”

Grand marshals in recent years include Elders David A. Bednar and D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as well as former Relief Society General President Jean B. Bingham.

President Holland Leads Pioneer Day Parade

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