"Never on a Sunday"
The Louisiana Celebration Riverboat, and all it represents, made an award-winning appearance in the 2023 Rose Parade
The History of the Rose Parade
The first Rose Parade traveled a similar route on New Year’s Day 1890, consisting of horse-drawn carriages elaborately decorated in fresh flowers. That inaugural parade was organized by members of Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club, after club member Charles Holder suggested they host a festival to celebrate the bounty of their mild, even warm winters (something we are quite familiar with here in Louisiana).
When Holder laid eyes on the floral bonanza that was that first parade, he suggested that moving forward the occasion be called the “Tournament of Roses”. Within a few years the parade and other events that comprised the tournament had outgrown the Valley Hunt Club’s capacity to host, and a non-profit organization called the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association was formed. By the beginning of the 1900s, the lot that currently sits adjacent to the California Institute of Technology, which traditionally housed the events associated with the parade, was christened Tournament Park.
Usually the Rose Parade and associated Rose Bowl Game are New Year’s Day traditions, but when New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday in 1893, organizers feared upsetting horses hitched outside of nearby church services. Since then, the Tournament of Roses has maintained a policy to never take place on a Sunday (hence this year’s events falling on January 2).
Before the Rose Bowl college football game was tacked on to help fund the parade, the early years of the Tournament of Roses brought delightfully peculiar activities: bronco busting demonstrations, ostrich races, and one year a race between a camel and an elephant (from which the elephant is said to have emerged victorious). Word of the tournament and the associated to-do made its way through newspapers across the United States, and attendance from out-of-town spectators skyrocketed. The “Tournament East-West Football Game,” now recalled as the first Rose Bowl game, took place in 1902, though it was not until 1916 that football became an expected part of the annual tradition. In 1923, after the Rose Bowl Stadium was completed, the game officially became known as “The Rose Bowl”.
Today, the Tournament of Roses has expanded far beyond what Holder and the other founders could have possibly imagined—to include dozens of motorized floats (still decorated exclusively with natural materials), alongside marching bands, equestrian units, and a celebrity grand marshall (last year’s was LeVar Burton, 2023’s was former congresswoman and advocate Gabby Giffords). Around a million spectators are estimated to have traveled to Pasadena for the occasion, which is today regarded as “America’s New Year’s Celebration,” and an estimated tens of millions tuned in to watch the internationally-televised event from their homes.
Louisiana’s Journey to Pasadena
After Louisiana’s “Celebration Gator” float made its debut in New York City’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2021, traffic to Louisiana tourism websites like louisianatravel.com instantly shot up. That inspired the state to pursue securing a float in the 2022 Rose Parade, which again resulted in an exponential boost in out-of-towners eyeing Louisiana online, many of whom booked trips for Mardi Gras because of the exposure. Though the Bayou State hosts plenty of parades on its own accord, having another Louisiana float featured on the international stage of the 2023 Rose Parade simply seemed obvious—especially to the state’s Office of Tourism and Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser.
“The festival queens are going to be able to take that passion to Pasadena, and talk about why cotton is important to Crowley, Louisiana; and why peaches are important up in Ruston; and all the great things that those towns and cities have to offer.”
—Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser
“It's just given us a lot of great positive publicity, when we know at the end of the year, people are making New Year's resolutions and [asking] ‘Where are we going to go on vacation next year?’ You know?” said Nungesser. “So, it's a great time to highlight all these great things in Louisiana.”
The Celebration Riverboat
Louisiana’s 2023 Rose Parade float, also known as the “Louisiana Celebration Riverboat,” was designed as a large steamboat with a paddle wheel, a nod to the bustling economy and culture that historically traveled via steamboats along the Mississippi River. As is customary, representatives rode on the float or walked alongside it as a means of showcasing the state’s cultural and agricultural bounty—among them twenty festival queens from across Louisiana.
“They're going to be able to take that passion to Pasadena, and talk about why cotton is important to Crowley, Louisiana; and why peaches are important up in Ruston; and all the great things that those towns and cities have to offer,” Nungesser said. “Just incredible press for every corner of this state. And I can't think of better people represent us than those incredible queens from all over Louisiana.”
Since this year’s parade is themed “Turning the Corner,” the goal of the float was to highlight the potential ushered in by the new year, as well as the advancements—particularly in medicine and research—Louisiana continues to make strides in. Riding on the float alongside the festival queens was Shreveport local Amber DeFatta, who as a child received treatment at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Shreveport for a rare bone condition called Trevor’s Disease. Now a volunteer at the hospital who works to raise awareness for Shriner’s live-saving work, DeFatta represented Shriners Hospitals—which, now a national network, were founded in Louisiana in 1922—from Louisiana’s float.
“So we will be out there highlighting the hundred-year anniversary of that incredible hospital that started right here in Louisiana, and all the thousands of children's lives they have saved and impacted,” Nungesser said in late December ahead of the Rose Parade. “We will also get all the queens to visit the Shriners Hospital in Pasadena to visit with those kids, to highlight even further all the great Shriners Hospitals around the country now, that once again, were started right here in Louisiana.”
Also representing Louisiana’s advancements in medicine was Baton Rouge’s 2020 Queen of the Karnival Krewe de Louisiane Mardi Gras Ball and advocate for cancer research Rose Hudson. In addition to currently serving as president and CEO of the Louisiana Lottery Corporation, Hudson is the immediate past chairman of the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Foundation Board.
Hudson considered the chance to represent her homestate and the Karnival Krewe de Louisiana a great honor, as well as an important opportunity to “spotlight the cancer research, detection, and treatment efforts at Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, which is so very special to me. I am also looking forward to meeting new people from around the country and sharing colorful, inspiring stories about our great state.”
Also on board was Louisiana Music Ambassador Lainey Wilson, originally from Baskin, who took home the 2022 Academy of Country Music Award for New Female Artist of the Year, and gave a mid-parade musical performance. Wilson's award helped Louisiana's float earn the Showmanship Award, which goes to the float with the best entertainment.
When it comes to the flowers, Shreveport’s American Rose Center was on prominent display for the occasion. The Center, which includes the largest garden dedicated to roses in the United States, recently underwent a $2 million renovation. It now features over seven thousand rose bushes and over four hundred varieties of roses, arranged in circles by age, from the newest roses back through very old heritage roses. “So it's really meant to be an educational walk through time,” explained American Rose Society President Diane Sommers, who walked alongside Louisiana’s float representing the Society and its Center. “And with all the wonderful roses there it is really quite lovely, it really is.”
Though the roses that adorn the parade floats have to be grown in warmer climates than the United States (even in California and Louisiana) can sustain this time of year and must be shipped in, the 120-year-old American Rose Society delighted at the opportunity to celebrate the rose on such a grand scale.
“To build this float and to walk in the Rose Parade, it’s just like out of this world, right?” Sommers told me excitedly ahead of her appearance alongside Louisiana's float. “And so I'm very thankful. And we're very thankful to the state of Louisiana, who has been extremely supportive of the Rose Center. You know, I think it's just a beautiful place for people in the community to attend.”
The Final Countdown
As this issue arrived on stands, Louisiana’s riders and volunteers were soaking in the scents of thousands of roses, evangelizing about their state, and creating a Louisiana-inspired floral masterpiece.
“To see everything, in three days, turn from a metal float to a rose, a seed, a feather. Everything has to be covered,” Nungesser explained to me ahead of the big day. “When you walk in on Monday, it's all steel. On Tuesday, there's thousands, tens of thousands of buckets of roses, flowers, carnations, every kind of flower in the world. And there's about twenty floats being decorated in our den. And to see that take place is a bucket list trip for everyone.”
By the time the parade was televised, hundreds of volunteer hours and hundreds of thousands of flowers went toward creating the “Louisiana Celebration Riverboat,” a representation of Louisiana’s important role within the United States, and far beyond it.
“I've heard it's really a lot of work. But I just think, ‘How fun to be there helping to create this and then seeing it when it's done?’” Sommers said before flying to Pasadena to help with the float's creation and walk alongside it. “You know, because when you watch a float like that on TV, you don't really see all the intricate detail. I just think it's going to be really quite the experience.”
And while Louisiana’s float and ambassadors did a great job of spreading the word of all their home has to offer, Nungesser is keenly aware that often the most effective promotion is word-of-mouth—and luckily for his office, Louisianans have an inherent knack for it. “It'll be a great experience for Louisianans, and of course, wherever Louisianans go, they make a friend for life,” Nungesser said. “So they help with the tourism aspect as well, talking about all the great things here in Louisiana.”