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It never gets old – South Pasadena garnering awards for its float entries in the annual Rose Parade.
On Monday, the city grabbed it’s third straight, earning the prestigious Founder Award ahead of the 135th Rose Parade.
“Pretty great,” summed up South Pasadena Tournament of Roses (SPTOR) President Ed Donnelly, before elaborating. “The Founder’s Award is specifically for recognizing self-built community floats. That’s what we are in South Pasadena.”
Further making the point, Tournament of Roses officials describe it as the “most outstanding float built and decorated by volunteers from a community or organization.
The announcement came just after 6 a.m. Monday from Tournament of Roses President Alex Aghajanian as he announced the winners on the footsteps of the Tournament of Roses headquarters, not far from the parade’s start, on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena.
“It’s the most appropriate award we possibly could have won, and it feels really good,” added Donnelly.
The winning float features a giraffe, toucan, elephant, Orangutan and snake playing musical instruments after placing the lively sounds of the Sylvers’ 1970s “Boogie Fever,” the name of South Pasadena’s entry, on a turntable that has fallen into the rain forest from a cargo plane.
Leland Glauz, decoration assistant, described how some flowers for “Boogie Fever” were chosen.
“Exotic flowers were highlighted due to the float’s tropical theme,” he said by phone after the parade. “We used hanging heliclonia and a number of other similar flowers. They are tropical and large. Their color and texture pop.”
In addition, they used four types of orchids, honeycomb ginger and bird-of-paradise, he explained.
Some unique flowers were used. Three unusual “green” roses are on the float. They are the supergreen, wisabi and veggie rose.
They used large numbers of other flowers. “I’ve never used so many hydrangeas and irises before,” Glauz said.
Other natural materials were used imaginatively. Giraffe spots were created from orange button mums. Raffia coated in cinnamon was perfect for the orangutan body, and Ming moss worked well as elephant skin.
“Toucan feathers were created by intertwining buffalo grass and red ti leaves,” he said.
Some of these materials came from the community. “We put out a call on social media for monstera leaves, elephant ear and other plants and bark, and people donated generously,” Glauz said.
Chris Metcalf is the float’s floral designer.
Glauz, 25, said this is his 17th year volunteering with the float, noting: “I started when I was seven.”
Janet Benjamin, the SPTOR decorations chair, who has spent countless hours at the float site working on the float in recent months, was asked if it was worth it?
Oh yes, she assured. Before the finished float left the worksite tent behind the War Memorial Building around midnight Sunday for the start of the parade in the 50th position on Orange Grove Boulevard, many came by to pay tribute.
“The award is nice, but being at the site with all the visitors, seeing their reaction of “Wow, oh my gosh, it gorgeous, is why we do it,” explained Benjamin. “It’s their comments, it’s their feelings. That is why we do this float every year.”
She added, “The award is great, don’t get me wrong, we love getting it, but it’s all about community.”
Unfortunately, Benjamin’s husband, Rob, the construction crew chief, came down with an illness in the days leading up to the parade and was unable to drive the city’s float in the parade, handing the keys over to Steve Fillingham, a trusted volunteer who drove the city entry down the parade route two years ago.
“I’ll take the fill-in spot,” joked Fillingham, a construction volunteer. “It’s an honor and pleasure to step up. I’m glad I could help out. I’m happy to be there for them.”
After hearing that South Pasadena had collected another award, he called the float amazing.
“Last night the reaction from the people who came to view it, knowing they donated something to it, felt great,” he said. “You would hear someone say, ‘That bark came from my tree, that leaf came out of my bushes.’ It’s a community event. It ties it all together when you get the community involved, seeing what their efforts do. Even if they don’t work on it, they know they contributed to it.”
Fittingly, South Pasadena’s float was a solid match to the overall theme- ”A World of Music – The Universal Language” – established by Tournament of Roses President Alex Aghajanian.
Another construction worker, holding a variety of other titles on the SPTOR committee, James Jontz said, “I think it’s beautiful,” about South Pasadena’s floral masterpiece. “Everything came together. We weren’t able to pull off everything we had hoped, but even with some of the setbacks, we still put out a beautiful product.”
And in his next breath, Jontz concluded: “The city should be very proud.”
Courtney Quinn, a SPTOR president twice – in 2019 and 2020 – and current secretary for the organization, said: “It’s always great when we win an award.”
Quinn’s said this year was a little different as her husband, Bryce, was a welder on the work crew “and became part of this amazing tradition for the first time. That was pretty cool to be a part of and add him to our float family.”
Joined by the Pasadena City College Band on the footsteps of the Tournament of Roses headquarters on Orange Grove Boulevard, Aghajanian read the list of winners.
During the announcement of awards by the TOR president, hoops, hollers and cheers were heard from float organizations responsible for constructing and decorating, whether it was a commercially built or one of six created entirely by volunteers, like the one South Pasadena rolled down the 5 1/2-mile route along Colorado Boulevard before thousands of parade watchers and millions more viewing it on television.
Others joining the self-built club include La Canada Flintridge, Downey, Burbank, Sierra Madre, and Cal Poly universities.
Used to winning, in 2023 the city’s “Spark of Imagination” float won the Bob Hope Humor Award. A year earlier, the Founder Trophy went to South Pasadena for “Dream. Believe. Achieve.”
Donnelly likes the idea of racking up achievements, knowing the awards are just icing on the cake.
“We do it, because we build community, because we’re proud of our city and proud of our tradition in building the oldest self-built in the parade,” explained Donnelly, praising the work of many down the stretch when thousands of flowers were inserted in water-vials to keep them fresh before placed on board the float by a crew dedicated to finish the task. “And to have it recognized and to have the hard work of our volunteers recognized, is fantastic. The award is a testament to the creativity and dedication of our volunteers, and all of their hard work to pull this off and make it happen, especially in the late hours of this week as we approached the parade.”
Smiling, Donnelly concluded, “I’m very proud of the work our team did.”
Sally Kilby contributed to this story.
