George Lucas to lead Rose Parade
By Dolores E. Pike

The organizers of the 118th Tournament of Roses Parade have picked the theme "Our Good Nature" for the parade that will step off at 8 a.m. California time on Monday, January 1, 2007.  The two hour parade will feature floats, made entirely from flowers and natural materials, including tree bark, seeds and leaves.  The floats are sponsored by corporations or community organizations.  The parade will also include marching bands from across the U.S. and high-stepping equestrian units.  Being a world renowned parade with over one million people in attendance, all float and band participants are honored with a commemorative lapel pin.

The only cars permitted to participate in the event will carry Grand Marshall George Lucas, the mayor of Pasadena and the Tournament of Roses president, who traditionally has the honor of choosing the Grand Marshall 

A place of honor is reserved in each Rose Parade for the float carrying the Royal Court, consisting of the Rose Queen and six Rose Princesses. Every September nearly 1,000 young women between the ages of 17 and 21 vie for the honor of being on the float, participating in a month-long interview process designed to find young women with the right combination of poise, personality, public speaking ability and scholastic achievement.

Each year an honor troop of Eagle Scouts from California's San Gabriel Valley Council, and Gold Award recipients of the Mount Wilson Vista Council Girl Scouts are selected to carry the parade banners down the route.

The Tournament of Roses has become such a large event that it requires 65,000 hours of manpower each year.  This is spread among 935 members of the Tournament of Roses Association and 38 student ambassadors who serve on one of the 34 committees.  Among their responsibilities are: selecting parade participants; directing visitors on parade day; serving hamburgers to band members at the end of the parade route; and appearing before community groups to promote the tournament.

During the parade all volunteers are outfitted in white suits, resulting in their being known as the "white suiters." 

Starting in December each year, white vehicles begin to appear around town bearing special "ToR" license plates.  These cars are donated by local car dealerships for use in conducting last minute business of the parade and then are sold after the parade.

Originally the floats were put together by volunteers from sponsoring organizations but today most are made by professional float building companies.  All characters and other objects on the float are created separately as pods, consisting of steel and chicken wire. The pod is then cocooned and sprayed with polyvinyl material before it is painted with the colors of flowers that will cover it.  The float pods are then put on the mechanical chassis which regularly includes computer-controlled robotic mechanisms to animate the structure.

Even though the floats can take up to a year to complete, many volunteers and hired hands are needed in the days following Christmas to apply the natural materials and flowers to cover the floats.  Some of the more delicate flowers are placed in individual vials of water to be set into the float one-by-one. The number of flowers required by one float is more than the average florist will use in five years in business.

Following the parade, the floats are on display for three hours in a paid admission area, as well as being on display the day after the Rose Parade.

The first Rose Parade was staged in 1890 by the Pasadena Valley Hunt Club whose members had migrated from much colder eastern and midwestern climates of the United States.  They were eager to brag about their new home's mild winter weather, with the flowers blooming and oranges ready for the picking.  They decided to hold a festival to show off their paradise but by 1895 the festival had grown too large for the club to handle and the Tournament of Roses Association was formed.

Originally patterned after the "Battle of Flowers" held in Nice, France, it was initially a modest procession of flower-covered carriages with afternoon games.  By the turn of the century the festivities included ostrich races, bronco busting and a race between a camel and an elephant, which the elephant won.  In 1902 the Tournament of Roses Association added a football game with the first participants being Stanford University and the University of Michigan.

Among the many traditions that the Rose Parade embraces is their "Never on Sunday" policy.  In 1893 officials decided to move the parade to Monday, January 2 to avoid frightening the horses tethered outside local churches and causing disruption to the Sunday morning worship services.

Since its inception the Tournament of Roses Parade has grown to such magnitude that shortly after New Year's Day sponsors and participating communities begin meeting to plan the floats for the following year's parade.

Notable recent floats:
Working roller coasters
A 50-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty
A robotic chef with moving arms
A complete tropical paradise, filled with animals
A working water slide

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