Burbank to Go Pro for ’88 Rose Float’s Frame

The Burbank float in the 1988 Tournament of Roses Parade may smell as sweet, but it won’t be constructed entirely in Burbank.

For more than 50 years, Burbank’s float has been designed and constructed entirely by city employees and volunteers on city premises, and that will hold true for this year’s float, to be seen in the New Year’s Day parade later this week.

But due to the increasing amount of time spent by employees welding the steel float chassis, the city’s Rose Parade Assn. has decided to have next year’s frame constructed by professional float builders.

‘We’ll Be Doing Almost Everything’

“But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a Burbank float,” insisted Audrey Sumption, the president of the association. “We will still do all the designing, and we will still be decorating the float. So we’ll be doing almost everything.”

Sumption said most cities which enter floats in the self-built category of the annual New Year’s Day parade have the float’s chassis built by private companies.

Mayor Mary E. Kelsey, former president of the association, said constructing the chassis had become a burden on city Public Service Department employees in recent years.

“It’s been a hard job for our workers for a long time,” Kelsey said. “They have to take some of their work time to do it, so other things which should be done get lost.” Also, she said, the department’s work yard is “not the best facility to build a float, so it will be better all around to have it done someplace else.”

The association receives about $45,000 each year from the city’s Public Service Department budget. It will receive at least that same amount next year, Sumption said, and the allocation would help pay for hiring an outside firm.

This year’s float, titled “International Flight,” will feature two flower-covered pheasants and “some girls,” Kelsey said.

The city has been entering floats in the Rose Parade since 1913. In the beginning, the floats were built by school district personnel, until the association was formed in 1947.

“We’re already starting to plan our design for next year,” Sumption said.