DESPERATE SEARCH FOR VOLUNTEERS, GREAT WORKSHOP. In a proud decades-long tradition, Battle Ground’s Rose Float Committee desires new management, new muscles, and a spacious new venue. All this for free, please.
This is a potential classified ad. In the absence of a good enough answer, here’s another.
FOR SALE: Single vehicle chassis, 18 feet to 8 feet, assembled from Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and International Truck parts. It moves with planned slowness. A little rusty. Rich history. Best deal.
A team of lively volunteers from Battle Ground used to spend March through July brainstorming, designing, building, and deploying a handmade craft for the Portland Rose Festival Grand Flower Parade. The heartfelt and strangely enduring manifestation of his hometown pride dates back to 1955. .
But barring a wonderful infusion of inspiration and energy, as well as genuine new properties, the Battle Ground Rose Float turns out to have sunk. No tanks went to Portland in 2023, and there are no tank plans for 2024. The Swan Rose Float from Battle Ground The song seems to have taken hold in 2022, according to the group’s president, Marla Polos.
The last time a new group of Rose Float volunteers joined (and joined) was in the 1990s. These other people are aging after decades of determination and many have passed away in recent years.
“When those other people die, it’s like pieces of them are gone,” said Louise Tucker, a longtime volunteer and former co-chair of the nonprofit Battle Ground Rose Float.
The committee’s need for young volunteers and new power is no secret lately, Tucker said. But this did not materialize.
“Kids of that era worry about a lot of things,” Tucker said. “They have after-school activities and jobs. I don’t think they think it’s very nice. “
The family-owned department stores that once characterized Battle Ground were also mainstays of the effort, whether through financial donations or simply providing sandwiches and coffee for volunteers, said Louise’s husband, Bill Tucker, who served as treasurer and co-president. of the Committee.
“Locally-owned businesses are the ones that have gotten involved,” Tucker said.
While it’s painful to finish such a satisfying ritual in her hometown, she says, it’s also inevitable.
“We thank each and every volunteer who has helped keep this culture alive over the years,” said Polos, current president of the Battle Ground tank organization. “Thousands of volunteers chose to be part of this networking task and felt immense pride. “
According to the rules of the parade, each whimsical and colorful design of the floats was completely natural, imaginatively formed from split peas and painted glasses, glued together and covered with dried flowers.
This ornate platform attached to a homemade chassis concealed a motive force that also operated moving parts, such as blinking eyes, flailing legs, or the tinkling of piano keys. In the midst of all this homemade fantasy, the glamorous princesses of Battle Ground were smiling, waving, and projecting the best balance and grace.
“These ordinary young women . . . proudly represented their schools and the greater Battle Ground area,” said volunteer Barbara Evans, who is part of this group of volunteers that began in the 1990s. “They have learned valuable lessons in citizenship and behavior. “
But if the princess structure is complete, so is the variety of the new princesses, Evans said.
The slow chassis length and its artistic peak have been replaced over the years, but it was still significantly wider than a road lane. He was given a police escort as he was towed to Portland for the annual June parade, where he stood out as homemade, Tucker said. A few weeks later, in July, it was also worn by other people at the Harvest Days festival and the Battle Ground car cruiser.
Its creators like to boast that the annual edition of Battle Ground was the longest-running participation of volunteers, non-professionals, and civic pride in the Grand Flower Parade. Most of the parades in this parade have been built or sponsored by professionals over the years, Nick said. Brodnicki, executive director of the Portland Rose Festival Foundation. (In recent years, Brodnicki added, networking and civic pride have participated in the Starlight Parade instead of the Grand Flower Parade. )
Highlights of Battle Ground’s float history include a Rose Festival Children’s Contest award in 2003 for a baby elephant king in a bubble bath, and a Grand Contest (best in the parade) prize in 2006 for an ornate rotating grand piano. with red roses and movable piano keys.
“It was a fun challenge to tackle every year and it brought out the creativity,” Tucker said.
But due to the pandemic, the Grand Floral Parade took a break in 2020 and 2021. By the time he returned in 2022, Polos said, exhibit construction and sponsorship had declined significantly. The occasion as a whole now feels smaller and less regional, he said. saying.
In addition to the need for new volunteers, there’s also the challenge of a permanent home for that 8-by-18-foot chassis and all that piles on top of it.
“He recovered,” he said, Tucker. No it was easy to locate who could take care of it.
The minimum requirements for the headquarters are electricity, heating, running water, access to restrooms, and plenty of workshops and garage space, according to the Battlefield Flotation Committee.
It’s a precious piece of Battle Ground history that the tank lived in its own Rose Float construction, which was on the campus of the existing Battle Ground Community Center. But that construction didn’t last, and the float was eventually moved to what were the volunteers. waiting would be their home: the city’s Flex Building, a public works garage.
In 2018, the city ended its long-term lease with the Rose Float Committee to purchase its own trucks and appliances in the Flex Building.
At this point, the Rose Float Committee was content to build smaller s on top of a golf cart. Meanwhile, the original chassis and decorative fabrics were stored a few miles north of town in Mark Van Vleet’s garage.
Van Vleet said he’s had a comfortable place for the parade floats since he helped build them for New Orleans’ By The Bay Mardi Gras-style parades in San Francisco. It even causes the chassis to do a slow overhaul every few weeks. just to make sure it’s still roadworthy. Driving the bare steel chassis through local streets is an engaging experience, he said.
“I walked back and forth all the way down Main Street to the Battle Ground,” he said. “The police want me. “
The steel chassis was built entirely by hand, welded from vehicle parts salvaged from a junkyard in Dollars Corner, Tucker recalls.
“It’s a real hodgepodge, but it worked,” he said.
Van Vleet said he wasn’t thinking about getting rid of the chassis but, like the Rose Float Committee, he liked to see it used rather than sitting in his garage unnecessarily. Not to mention all the dried beans, he added.
“I have 50 five-gallon buckets filled halfway with split peas and dyed coconut and alfalfa seeds,” he said. “Maybe I’ll leave them in your garage. Do I need them?”
A networked organization (or a farm with a barn) would be welcome, he said.
“Someone could use it,” he said. A church, a school, a scout party. If they were Girl Scouts, I’d help build a new one and fill it with cookies.
“We’d love to track down who would use it as a tank,” Bill Tucker said. “The last option is to throw it away. “