All Is Not Roses as Adoption Plea by Boy Aboard Float Fails

Wearing a make-believe prince’s suit and a brave smile, the little boy with no parents climbed aboard a Rose Parade float early Tuesday morning in hopes of riding it into a new family’s heart.

“My New Year’s wish is to be adopted,” the 7 1/2-year-old named Edward said in a carefully memorized speech, which some television stations released. “You don’t need a lot of money. Just a lot of love.”

But 24 hours after a million Pasadena parade-goers and an estimated 400 million TV viewers worldwide watched him wave shyly from the Kiwanis float, no one had inquired about adopting him.

“Perhaps the phone number wasn’t given out. Perhaps there was some confusion,” said a disappointed Emery Brontrager, an administrator and spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services. “So far, we haven’t gotten any calls.”

The shy second-grader had been picked to ride on the float by county adoption officials, who hoped the boy’s grin would lead him to a new home.

Because he is older than most children sought by adoptive parents, Edward is considered by officials to be a “hard-to-place” child. So they figured that the family-oriented Rose Parade, and its huge audience, would be the perfect place to show off the boy they have come to love.

County officials have been invited to send a child to ride in the parade since 1989. The appearances led to permanent homes for the two previous float passengers--including a child who last year was adopted by a Missouri family.

On Tuesday, county officials hooked up a telephone answering machine to record New Year’s Day messages left by prospective parents who saw Edward in the parade. Social workers were prepared Wednesday morning to immediately begin screening the dozen or so families they expected would inquire about the boy.

By midday Wednesday, however, officials were dejectedly calling local television stations to ask if they had received any inquiries about Edward. Officials said one station failed to televise a phone number that viewers could call and another may have broadcast the wrong number.

KTTV vice president of programming Don Tillman, KTLA Rose Parade co-producer Marilyn Jones and KNBC parade coverage production assistant Gary Gast said their stations had received no calls about the boy. But each of the broadcasters promised to refer any future inquiries to the county agency.

By late Wednesday afternoon, the telephone was finally starting to ring in the office of Sarah Berman, head of the county department’s adoption division.

Three callers asked about Edward. And a fourth asked about other children among the 300 or so youngsters available for placement through the county.

“We’re optimistic,” said Norma Tannenbaum, Edward’s social worker.

“We don’t need 20 homes for Edward. Just one.”