Riders on Floats Keep Things in Perspective

Early New Year’s morning, Walter Crawford plans to swallow a few Tylenols to fend off arm cramps, step onto a Rose Parade float and hold up a real 7-pound owl for millions to see as he stands in the shadow of two giant man-made owls, complete with pampas grass tails.

Crawford is into wildlife conservation.

Cathy Perez will stand atop a giant garden bridge float made of rice and seeds and hold close to her heart an 8-by-10 photo of her deceased 5-year-old son, whose organs were donated.

Perez hopes to inspire others to donate organs.

And then there are the three dozen high school musicians who think their participation may be a plus on their college applications; a Trader Joe’s store manager who won a contest for the best in-store flower display; the daughter of a float builder who was given a float ride as a wedding gift from her dad; and two stuntmen who will be paid for their performance aboard a simulated freefalling elevator. Absent will be an unnamed congressman whose request to ride on a float was turned down by its builder.

In the predawn hours of New Year’s Day, about 300 Tournament of Roses Parade riders will step aboard flower-festooned floats, strap themselves to safety bars and wildly wave to tens of thousands of cheering people who really care little about the human cargo aboard.

Even so, the float riders, who tend to be an effusive bunch, said their appearance in one of America’s most popular mega-events will be an experience of a lifetime, an unforgettable rush of adrenaline heaped with heartfelt messages or heavy commercial promotion. They will cry, shiver and shout out greetings. At the end of the day, they will nurse sore elbows and wrists.

Despite the hoopla built into their ride by float sponsors -- it’s an honor, it’s a thrill, it’s exhausting -- to be a Rose Parade float rider means one is but a mere human prop amid the real stars of the parade: giant man-made floral displays of moving creativity. The role of a rider, according to float-builder purists, is to provide the all-important sense of scale for the millions watching the parade on the small screen at home.

“The human eye can only relate to something that it knows,” said Tim Estes, president of Fiesta Parade Floats. How else will television viewers -- and there are estimated to be about 200 million worldwide -- be able to tell how big a set of floating twin whales is? Or a trio of towering saguaro cactuses, or an animated smoke-breathing dragon? A human rider can provide that perspective.

The only riders who are supposed to attract attention are the professional stunt performers for Festival Artists, the float-building company that has made a name for itself with complex animation and performers who make daring leaps and drops. The role of stunt rider is to provide the live drama important to the integrity of the float’s design.

Darryl Ferges and his associates have been shot out of a float cannon, bungee jumped off a float, performed a ski jump off another, and have been lifted 25 feet in the hand of a giant purple character and dropped in its mouth.

One year, Ferges dressed up like a baby bird and performed the chick’s first flight by jumping out of a birdhouse 25 feet above street level. This year he will be inside a towering elevator that will simulate a freefall from 100 feet in the air. But his work as the fairy-tale character Jack, performing a 25-foot fall after being swatted off a beanstalk by an animated Green Giant, was among the most memorable rides.

“I must have fallen off that vine 50 times. It was a brilliant float,” Ferges said. “At the end of it all, I climbed into a hot tub for two days.”

Float builders generally cringe at the placement of celebrity riders, who detract attention from their creations. They wince when large or tall people step aboard because they throw off the scale. Float designers have been known to camouflage extreme-size humans with flowers at the last moment. Children, small and cute, are almost always welcome adornments. The ideal rider, float builders said, is a smiling, nondescript waver of average build who enhances a float.

“I don’t care one bit if anyone is looking at me; it’s my chance of a lifetime,” said Marie Janssen, one of eight Trader Joe’s riders. Forty-three years ago, Jansen, an alto saxophonist, marched in the parade with the Dodge City High School Band from Kansas. Back then, she sheared sheep all summer to earn her train fare to the parade. This time around, she built an elaborate floral display at a Costa Mesa store and won a companywide decorating contest.

“This is huge. The company is giving a dinner reception for us, we get a tour of the corporate office, we get a jacket and a new Hawaiian shirt,” she said, referring to the uniform store employees wear.

A few float sponsors don’t want the hassle or additional cost of flying out employee riders and putting them up in hotels. Estes said he has asked his wife, neighbors and other relatives to ride on floats.

But most float sponsors, both corporations and charitable groups, build yearlong incentive programs and contests around the selection of float riders, who will be ambassadors of sorts before millions of television viewers and spectators. Among the riders this year will be the winners of essay contests, salespersons of the year, volunteers of the year and an employee who won the “Spirit of Longaberger” company award.

Executives of Luxottica Retail, which operates the LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut chains, began brainstorming sessions last summer to select seven float riders. Should they hold a companywide lottery, or a contest of some sort? They settled on a nomination system for employees who have volunteered with LensCrafters’ “Gift of Sight” program, which provides glasses and eye exams for poor people throughout the world.

Judy Smith, 67, a Sacramento optician who helped launch the program and has been on 10 international eye-exam missions, was one of the winners.

“I was home in bed reeling from chemotherapy treatment when I got the call, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Smith said. “This is totally mind-boggling, and being on the float is truly the light at the end of my tunnel as far as recuperating from breast cancer.”

Many other riders’ stories are likewise loaded with emotion. They view their ride down Colorado Boulevard as a powerful symbol of heroism or goodwill.

Denae Perry, 30, began to weep as she talked about her selection as a rider on a float depicting a towering Uncle Sam and Liberty Bell, sponsored by Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, an agency of the Defense Department. She was selected because she is the widow of the first National Guardsman killed in Iraq. Staff Sgt. David Perry died when a suspicious package he was inspecting exploded.

“He evacuated the building and set up a perimeter, saving many lives, before he went to inspect it,” Perry said. “Riding on the float is going to be very difficult for me, but anything I can do to honor my husband and keep his memory alive, I’ll do.”

Riding with her will be Capt. Kris Marshall of the Army National Guard. His mother wrote an essay that won him a spot on the float. Marshall, who has been serving in Afghanistan, accepted the ride on one condition: He would not travel to the States until after Christmas so as not to abandon his troops over the holiday.

Sophisticated public relations agendas are behind the appearance of some riders. Some PR efforts fail, such as attempts by representatives of soap-opera stars to get their clients on board a float.

Bill Lofthouse of Phoenix Decorating Co. said he got a letter from the office of a California congressman this year, requesting a float debut.

“I told them all my slots were taken, and it was a truthful answer,” he said.

Estes, of Fiesta floats, is hoping Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter of “Trista and Ryan’s Wedding” fame won’t steal attention from the drama of the 100,000 roses that will grace the “Love Songs” float he has designed for FTD.

Rehn was “The Bachelorette” on an unscripted ABC miniseries who chose Sutter, a Colorado firefighter, as her man by giving him a rose. The couple then got married on TV in a multimillion-dollar wedding (paid for by the network) adorned with 30,000 Ecuadorean roses -- a connection to the Rose Parade that appealed to FTD. Because the company paid for the float, it has the final say on riders.

Estes, however, has been having flashbacks to the year a float sponsor approved the placement of the canine star of the film “Benji” on its float.

“The cameras focused on Benji. Everyone talked about Benji,” he recalled. “They didn’t show the float, never talked about the float. It was Benji, Benji, Benji.”

Tiffany Bierer was one of those riders known only to their families and friends. Bierer, a pet nutritionist who rode on the Whiskas cat food float last year, is a Rose Parade aficionado who for four years helped decorate her company’s entry. Her dedication earned her a chance to show off her aggressive wave.

“They tell you not to wave hard because your arm will turn to jelly, but I waved like a madwoman,” she said. “You feel like you are a star for those few seconds as you pass people.”

Among the most veteran of float riders are Jack Hanna, of the TV show “Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures,” and Walter Crawford, director of the World Bird Sanctuary. The duo have appeared together on the Rain Bird float for four years. Crawford said he works out his arm for months to be able to hold up an exotic bird for three straight hours. Hanna said he once experienced the dreaded worst-case scenario feared by every float rider: the need for a bathroom break.

He ended up waving down the owner of a business along the route, rushing off the float, using the restroom and then running back to the float 30 yards down the road. Other parades have been devoid of such personal emergencies. But for a man who has traveled the world, the five-mile parade route is among his most rigorous and exciting of journeys.

“You are constantly smiling and waving. You are standing in the same small place for five hours,” Hanna said. “I’ve jumped out of planes, dived with great white sharks and have been bitten by snakes, but the experience of riding in the Rose Parade tops most of them.”