Rose Parade Float by Dixie Plata – Pathfinder Historian
Norm Middag, then Pathfinder and Camping Director for the North American Division, had a dream. A huge dream, to have a Seventh-day Adventist Float in the Rose Parade for a January 1st Tournament of Roses Parade. After research and “finding” enough money for the application it was sent off and then the wait began. For seven years the dream lay, waiting for an opening in the parade line up. In 1990 word came that the church could have a float in the parade. Norm chose Fiesta Parade Float Company of Azusa, California to build the float. His research found that they were a top company of float builders with Tim Estes as president and Jim Hynd as vice president and floral director. Beverly Stansbury was project manager for Fiesta and Darryl and Bob Bender were our float supervisors, and like is often said… the rest is history.
Elder Middag asked Arnold and Dixie Plata to coordinator volunteers that would be decorating our float and Richard and Lyndene Wright to coordinate scheduling volunteers and getting churches in Southern California to provide a hot meal for each shift December 26th – 31st. What a task lay ahead of us but how exciting to be a part in this great ministry.
What you ask brings this Pathfinder Float project to mind so many years later? Well it is this way, I have been sorting and repacking items for storage and came across so many great memories that I felt it was time to share some of them. Many of the hundreds of individuals that helped to decorate “our” float became friends and are even now, 25 years later.
I remember Beverly, the project manager for Fiesta, telling me, after she got to know us, that they watched us closely, in fact she told me “Dixie, when I first heard a church group would be decorating I thought, Heaven Help us!” You see Beverly had worked with church groups before. She said that after a couple hours of seeing us in action she knew she had no reason to worry.
Our young people and their adult leaders were a witness by carefully completing each task given them, be it cutting strawflower or statice for seven hours or gluing orange lentils on a ducks bill or its feet one by one. Fiesta was surprised that Pathfinders were working along with senior citizens, our eldest decorator was 90 and our youngest 4, and were all having a great time together. Volunteers came from all parts of the North American Division and were from many different nationalities and cultures yet we were a “family” working together to bring notice to our church and our Lord.
There were skeptics, within the Seventh-day Adventist Church; maybe YOU were one of them. Even though no money came from church offerings or tithes, people that said “it was too much money and Rose Parade Floats don’t baptize people”…and yet. Our experiences were many where various individuals had the opportunity to talk about their faith as they worked. We proudly wore our float shirts with “sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church” on the back for all to see. As we worked hard we had a good time sharing that being a Christian could be fun.
It was a miracle that the float was completed on time and we were able to help some of the other floats in the float barn that were behind, even though we did not work on Sabbath and they did. In fact Darryl told Arnold and I that we witnessed by not being there. When I questioned how he said all day Sabbath decorators from the other seven floats in the barn came by our float asking him “where the 7th day people” were and he told them we were at church worshiping on our Sabbath. What a witness!
How thrilled we were on the wee hours of January 1st to discover that our float had won the Lathrop K. Leishman Award for most beautiful non-commercial float. The Seventh-day Adventist Church Rose Parade float was a fantastic tool to put the churches name before the world. The seed had been planted and only in Heaven will we know the extent of our labors and how the Lord turned our efforts for good for HIM. Parts of this float will be on display in the Adventist Youth Ministries Museum.
