by Dot Cannon
“Everyone ready for a great parade?” called the White Suiter.
The audience responded with cheers.
On Friday morning, Pasadena had undergone unprecedented security measures. Bomb-sniffing dogs and thorough bag checks were a part of predawn preparations for the 127th Rose Parade®. Following the December 2 terror attack in San Bernardino, paradegoers were cautioned to be vigilant: “If you see something, say something.”
Mindfulness was the keyword of the morning. But, it was still New Year’s Day in Pasadena.
And now, 8 am had arrived.
Attendees stood up and cheered as the Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber soared over Colorado Boulevard.
And, the Rose Parade® was under way!
Doing justice to all 44 floats, plus the bands, equestrian units, Grand Marshal, Royal Court, Pasadena Mayor, Tournament of Roses® President and Rose Bowl teams would be impossible! Here are just a few highlights of what was, definitely, a great parade.
Aboard the spectacular Honda opening float, “Nature’s Hope”, youth impacted by the 2011 East Japan Earthquake and tsunami played a musical composition with multiple GRAMMY® award-winning musician Daniel Ho.
Applause greeted the first band of the day: the United States Marine Corps West Coast Composite Band. These Marines are from three separate military bands (1st Marine Division Band, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing Band, Marine Band San Diego). Many of them have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Rose Parade® is the only event in which the three bands unite to play together.
Among the forty-four floats in the 2016 Rose Parade® were six created by noncommercial float builders, called “self-builts”. (Above is “Rollin’ on the River”, created by Burbank Tournament of Roses.) For the 2016 Rose Parade®, every one of those six self-builts’ entries won a trophy!
(That’s particularly impressive because these six nonprofits, called “self-builts”, are all-volunteer organizations and build their floats at a cost of approximately eighty thousand dollars each. An average commercially-built float, according to the Tournament of Roses’® website, costs around two hundred fifty thousand dollars.)
This self-built float is by Cal Poly Universities, and is the only student-built float in the Rose Parade®. It’s actually built on two different campuses: Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo each built half the float’s framework. Then, students from San Luis Obispo drive down to Pomona in October, and the two halves are joined together.
Meanwhile, in the “bands” category…
…Albany State University’s Marching Rams looked sharp, and sounded great, in their first Rose Parade® appearance. The band, which hails from Albany, Georgia, has been selected seven times to perform in Honda’s Battle of the Bands. This competition showcases top historically Black College bands from across the nation.
Other band favorites included Virginia Military Institute Regimental Band and Pipes. Cadets at the Virginia Military Institute learn the bagpipes from scratch! (And on this, their second appearance in the Rose Parade®, sounded like they’d been playing all their lives!)
And a crowd favorite, for every Rose Parade®, is the Honor Green Band. Every year, students from a different region in Japan get to be in the Green Band and showcase their talents. This year’s band members were the Toho High School Green Band, making their first Rose Parade® appearance.
No matter what part of Japan they’re from, Green Band performances have one common denominator: the element of surprise. Previous Green Bands have taken the corner of Colorado and Orange Grove at a run while playing, or performed intricate dance steps without missing a beat. However, this year, there wasn’t room for them to run around the corner, with the Kiehl’s float not far ahead. Spectators barely had time to wonder what they were going to do, for an innovative take on their performance, when…
…2016 Green Band members marched forward, marched backwards by several steps, spun around while playing–and made it all look very easy! They continued that way down the parade route.
Another Rose Parade® favorite was the Martinez Family charro team, with their trick-roping skills and their beautiful Andalusians, Friesians and American quarterhorses. They’ve been riding in the Rose Parade® for thirty-four years!
2016 Rose Parade® Grand Marshal Ken Burns appeared to be enjoying the parade as much as everyone else. The award-winning filmmaker and his family drove down the parade route in a 1925 Yellowstone Touring Bus.
Top award-winning commercial float builder Fiesta Parade Floats won yet another eight awards for their 2016 work. Once again, they won the most awards of any builder in the parade.
Meanwhile, Artistic Entertainment Services wowed the audience–and won the Extraordinaire Trophy–with their “Disneyland Resort” float.
Celebrating Disneyland’s 60th anniversary, this float was accompanied by some very familiar and beloved “outwalkers”…
…who ranged from Snow White to Storm Troopers.
And Phoenix Decorating Company’s “Union of Hearts” drew oohs and aahs from the crowd with pyrotechnics. (This float was a first-time entry for both Union Bank and the American Heart Association, who teamed up to remind paradegoers of the importance of a heart-healthy lifestyle.)
The Rose Parade®’s top float building prize is the Sweepstakes Trophy, for “most beautiful entry in the parade, with outstanding floral presentation and design”. Paradiso Parade Floats won their first Sweepstakes Trophy, with this fire-breathing dragon!
This is the Singpoli Group float entitled, “Marco Polo East Meets West”. Paradiso is a relatively new float builder, started in 2012 by longtime float designer Charles Meier.
Those two hours went by too fast! The 2016 Rose Parade® ended with a rousing chorus of “America the Beautiful”, for the closing show.
Happy New Year! Be safe, and have fun “Finding Your Adventure” in 2016.