A Hometown Favorite Draws Quite a Crowd : Celebration: It’s called the Azalea Parade, but it’s far from a flowery event. With everything from a 76-year-old queen to a Hawaiian theme to a street-smart vendor, it’s the essence of Main Street U.S.A.

Bands were tuning up and the Tweedy Boulevard curbs were filling up with balloon-clutching youngsters. The Kambos Family Restaurant, along the route of the annual Azalea Parade, was not quite filled, unusual for a late Sunday morning.

“It cuts into my business but I never complain; I feel South Gate is the city I was born in,” said owner Paul Galanakis, who came from Greece 20 years ago. He wore a green lei and seemed to be checking if the street had been blocked off yet.

It was a couple of hours before the parade, which is part of the monthlong Azalea Festival, held each year since 1966 during the time the azaleas are in bloom.

This year’s festival events, geared to a Hawaiian theme, included “Sunset Luau,” “Lava Chili Dinner,” “Kamehameha Enchilada Dinner,” “Diamondhead Golf Tournament,” “Beach Blanket Bingo” and “Outrigger Fishing Derby.”

But the parade would be the highlight. It would be reigned over by a queen who, according to longstanding tradition, must be civic-minded and at least 60 years old. Pageantry Productions of Lynwood--which puts on 65 parades a year--had worked for 12 months planning the Azalea Parade and ensuring that it would have a hometown flavor.

Asked what makes a successful parade, Pageantry Productions’ owner Bill Lomas answered:

“Bands.”

His computer sheets indicate that this parade would have nine of them.

“And a parade has to be interesting to everyone and lots of fun,” Lomas added. “Nothing too serious.”

A big man in a red shirt and white pants, Lomas carried a clipboard and 30 years of parade experience through a parking lot that had been taken over by horse trailers. He greeted another parade veteran, a black Arabian horse with patent leather shoes and purple saddle. “Tzaral’s done more than a hundred parades, including the Rose Parade,” said his rider, Eileen Bushman of Chino.

The parking lot was near the intersection of Tweedy and California Avenue, the parade’s mustering area. It held three empty floats--one for the queen and her court, one for former queens and one for the Tweedy Mile Assn., a group of merchants on the boulevard.

Twelve blocks down Tweedy, a pre-parade reception was being held at the Bank of America. In the lobby, Fred Mayfield, 38, the boyish-faced, enthusiastic co-chairperson of the parade committee, said that the parade last year drew 20,000 spectators, despite rain. “Today we could have up to 50,000,” he said.

Mayfield said the parade cost $13,000, with the city paying $10,000 and the rest coming from community donations.

A long food table was in front of the tellers’ cages, and the carpeted area where loan officers normally sit was crowded with colorfully attired women, including the parade queen and former queens. They were dressed in flowery Hawaiian garb and had crowns on their heads.

The queen, Rachel Prater, 76, was wearing a purple-and-white mumu and eating at a table with former queens Zelma Benner and Ann Fowler. Still surprised over her crowning last month, Prater said, “It feels great, I’ve never had so much adulation.”

She has served in many volunteer positions during her 53 years in South Gate. She has made clothes for the handicapped and was president of the Friends of the Weaver Library. The festival program notes that she is an avid boater and quilter.

Lewis Prater was proud to have a queen for a wife. “It’s an honor that comes once in a lifetime,” he said. He pulled a photograph from his wallet of Rachel taken after they had met in junior high.

Among those greeting the guests was Zelma Benner’s husband, Chuck, one of the founders of the festival.

He said the festival was launched to awaken civic pride. “We just had no purpose, we needed something to hang our hat on,” said Benner, who was president of the Chamber of Commerce at the time. “I appointed a beautification commission, and we adopted the azalea as the city flower because Frank Ishida, a nurseryman, said we had the ideal climate to grow azaleas. There were very few here then.”

As to the tradition of the queen having to be at least 60, Benner said the city wanted to honor the older people who had contributed to South Gate. “Euphrosine Green was the first queen,” he said. “I had never heard of the gal, but she had contributed a lot toward the city.”

Back in the mustering area, the sound of drum rolls could be heard. Vendors pushed their cotton-candy carts. Lomas, the parade organizer, gave commands to his staff over a walkie-talkie.

The parade would have 250 units, including the three floats, city officials in vintage convertibles, clowns, horses, tall flags and many drill teams.

“I’m going to jump out of my car and shake hands,” Councilman Albert T. Robles said.

The queen and her honor court arrived from the reception in vans and got onto their float with the help of float driver Martin Ramirez, who called them “baby dolls.”

A little past 1, under perfect skies, the parade began to march eastward on Tweedy, led by grand marshal Jim Belknap, a longtime scout leader in the city, the city officials and the South Gate Youth Band.

The queen followed in her glittering float decorated with silk azaleas. (Strangely, no real azaleas were to be found along the parade route.) Prater waved to the children on the curbs, and they waved back.

Then came the Lynwood High School Band, Rams football player Jackie Slater, an American Legion post, a few more drum squads and then some costumed horses.

Little girls watched as they sat in frilly dresses. Older boys darted from one vantage point to the next, maneuvering around the lawn chairs on the sidewalk, to keep up with the bare-legged teen-age majorettes.

Melody Hernandez’s three youngsters sat on the curb in front of her. “They’ve been waiting all week for this,” she said above the clip-clop of a horse whose tail was so long it dragged on the pavement. But she admitted that she liked parades herself and, besides, “there’s not much to do in South Gate.”

The regulars at the La Reyna Bar, which used to be the Duck Inn, had stepped outside to watch the parade. Carl Schubert looked at the blaring bands for a while, then said, “I’ve got to finish my beer,” and went back inside.

The parade proceeded along the city’s main commercial stretch to South Gate Park, past bakeries, barbershops, restaurants, Tweedy Hardware, medical and dental buildings, furniture and record stores, delis, discount places, grocery stores and the library.

Tracy Lewis, a red-faced vendor, stood by his cart, which was loaded with cotton candy, balloons, toys, candy apples and popcorn.

The other vendors kept moving, but Lewis stayed at the intersection of Tweedy and San Carlos Avenue, where he had been successful in previous parades. “You got to have strategy, times are getting rough,” he said. “The other guys say I’m lazy and don’t know how to work a parade, but how come I do $400 every year?”

He looked up the sidewalk at people headed his way. He smirked and said, “Look what’s coming, and every one of them has got a kid.”

Down at the reviewing stand, in front of the Bank of America, Lomas held a microphone and, like a circus barker, announced the units as they passed. “Miles and miles and miles of smiles,” he said, though this parade was less than two miles.

Then came the Shriners, the familiar fezzes on their heads, driving miniature cars in crazy-quilt patterns. The revving and the honking caused kids with candy-smeared mouths to hold their ears, and adults to laugh.

“What a great group of guys,” Lomas boomed.

*

About halfway through the parade, a startling thing happened. The fire engine from Station 54, which had been 50th in the parade lineup, was now speeding with siren wailing toward the parade.

“Some guys like to go by the reviewing stand twice,” Lomas joked as he watched the truck, with its Dalmatian up front, disappear.

A short time later, a police officer said that one of the Shriners had lost control when his little car malfunctioned and hit a parade watcher, causing a minor foot injury.

It had become 3 o’clock and there was still a lot of parade left. “Every time I think they’re finished, here comes another bunch,” said Rachel Prater, now sitting on the reviewing stand.

Among those still to come were the Compton High Junior ROTC, the Lynwood All-City Drill Team, Skippy Dee Klown, the Spirit of Santa Fe Springs Parade Corps, the El Rancho High Junior ROTC, the Compton Sounders Drill Team and the Rockview Dairies banner.

The parade had slowed to a crawl and developed large gaps. The younger marchers, new to parades, could not keep up, the organizers said. During the gaps, there was nothing to do but stare at the strangely empty sunstruck street.

This took its toll on the parade-goers, and they began to thin out.

South Gate police estimated that the crowd was about 2,500, but Mayfield, sitting outside the reviewing stand, could not believe it. “The sidewalks were three-deep with people,” he said. “There were at least 25,000 here, 25,000 happy and smiling faces.”

Finally, just before 4, the parade’s last unit, the Santa Ana Winds Youth Band, marched by the reviewing stand, its final notes fading down where Tweedy turns residential.

Before Lomas could put away his microphone, a street-cleaning truck whizzed by. The city, 28 years later, was still focusing on beautification.

“You know the party’s over when the street sweeper comes,” the parade man said, whistling as he walked away.