Former Camp Verde Mayor Tony Gioia has been named the grand marshal for the 68th annual Fort Verde Days Parade, which will take place at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 12.
“I am so honored and surprised to be the grand marshal. I’ve been going to the Fort Verde Days Parade … for as long as I can remember,” Gioia said. “My parents would only come to visit a couple times a year and they would be sure that they were here for Fort Verde Days. It was just the community celebrating the history of the community and and just seemed to be a time when everybody was out and people came home. To me, it was like a homecoming.”
“[Gioia] served on the Camp Verde Town Council for 13 years,” a town press release stated. “He was first elected in 1998, served as vice mayor and was then elected mayor for two terms, serving from 2005 to 2009 … His love of water conservatorship is also evident in his involvement with the Yavapai County Water Advisory, Friends of the Verde River and the Verde River Basin Partnership. He worked to achieve the Wild and Scenic Congressional Designation for Fossil Creek. One of his favorite things is the Verde River.”
Gioia was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and grew up in Staten Island before moving to New Jersey, which he said “wasn’t far enough west by any means.”
“I’d gone all over the country because I used to race motorcycles, which I’m still dabbling in,” Gioia explained, adding that he bought his first motorcycle when he was 17. “And so I’ve seen many places, and I’d go back to those towns when I wasn’t heading to the race and check them out to see if they were anything like what I was looking for.”
Gioia arrived in Camp Verde in 1994 after spending much of his early life searching for a place reminiscent of his grandfather’s hometown, Brewster, N.Y.
He recently celebrated his 25th anniversary with wife Kim. The couple met while he was working at the post office and had a daughter, Sarah. Gioia said he took the postal job for health insurance coverage while he was pursuing a career as a professional motorcycle racer.
“We really enjoy adventuring together,” Gioia said. “We have a little toy hauler to take a motorcycle with us. We like boondock camping, not in campgrounds. And we like to hike and enjoy some of the wonders of the world. We just came back a couple of months ago from the Canadian Rockies, British Columbia. We rode … through Icefields Parkway and in Vancouver Island. We just enjoy spending time together.”
Part of the cost of Gioia’s motorcycle career was five broken collarbones on separate occasions, but Gioia said the broken bones were also part of the inspiration for the TG Raceworks company he founded around 1980.
“I invented things I saw needs for, certain things, back protectors, safety boots … or things that would bring down the numerous broken collarbones,” Gioia said. “So I worked on developing something for that. The back protectors became a standard in the industry, and now when I buy a jacket, it comes with a back protector in it, that, of course, I pay for. I didn’t get any royalties. And the boots I buy right now, almost look like the bootsI made in the ’80s. I had them manufactured and distributed throughout the world.”
Gioia also developed a love for horseback riding from an early age and said that he was in the process of finding a new horse to ride in 2024’s parade. “The horses that I’d ridden in the parades before, I seem to have outlasted them,” he said.
For a full schedule of Fort Verde Days events and parade registration, visit VisitCampVerde. com/fort-verde-days.
