SPECIAL REPORT * Sierra Madre is one of just a few towns to build its own Rose Parade entry. Civic pride and volunteers’ hard work leave residents . . . : Floating on Air

Looking over Sierra Madre’s Rose Parade float, construction manager Chip Young smoked a cigarette and admired his work. It was Dec. 9, and most of the construction was done. The float, all metal and wood, would soon be covered with flowers and greenery.

“I think someday we should have a parade without the flowers,” he said. “I think you cover up the float’s beauty with the flowers.”

Young, 36, has worked on the town’s annual float entry for 18 years and has never been paid a dime--but that’s the whole point.

Sierra Madre is one of 56 cities and corporations entering floats in the 110th Tournament of Roses Parade. But the San Gabriel Valley town is one of only six competitors whose entries are entirely volunteer-driven and donation-based.

In town, there’s a deep, ingrained pride that little Sierra Madre--with less than 11,000 people--can compete with the “big boys” of the Rose Parade. The big boys are the corporations and cities that spend up to $250,000 to hire professionals to build perfect floats for the New Year’s Day parade in Pasadena. Sierra Madre doesn’t have the deep pockets or the professional know-how of its corporate competitors. What it does have is an amazingly dedicated cadre of volunteers.

The city’s Rose Float Assn. raises between $25,000 and $35,000 a year, relies heavily on nonmonetary contributions and spends countless hours designing and building a float. Sierra Madre has entered floats in the parade since 1917, missing only a few during the Depression and World War II.

“We’re not there to win a prize,” Young said. “We’re there just to be there. It’s hard to compete when [a professional builder] spends $120,000 and you spend $25,000.”

There have been a few mishaps along the way. A cooling system failure last year halted the city’s float before it finished the 5.5-mile route. In the 1950s, the float was hit by a drunk driver on its way to the parade. Last-minute repairs were made as it reached the starting point. But every year, the town perseveres.

“It takes a certain amount of dedication to see a project through until the end,” said volunteer Mike Moran, 53. He speaks from experience. Although the majority of volunteers come out to help cover the float with flowers the days after Christmas, a core group works on it year round--when it’s neither glamorous nor pretty.

“They’re here doing their part, in the loneliest part,” said David Duran, a member of the association’s board of directors. “There are no crowds.”

Planning for the float began in early 1998, right after the last parade. After the current theme--”Echoes of the Past”--was announced, about 10 artists submitted designs. The construction and floral volunteers decided which designs were feasible. By early February, two finalists were presented to about 30 of the association’s 80 members, who voted for “The Great Crate Race.”

The float features an old-fashioned soapbox derby. On a flatbed-like platform, three cars jockey for the lead while a bleacher full of people cheer and wave checkered flags in the background.

Working Side by Side

Steve and Belle Gagne are in charge of covering the float with more than 100,000 fresh flowers.

Tournament of Roses rules require that the entire float be covered with natural materials--in other words, none of those spray-painted flowers that can be found in other parades, Belle Gagne said.

The work can be tedious. To color the drivers’ jeans and the blues on the cars, senior citizens have been cutting purple petals off of statice flowers for weeks. Cutting dozens of flowers produces a handful of the confetti-sized petals.

Although the flowering is done the last week of December, planning begins in the summer, Belle Gagne said. She placed orders with brokers by June.

“Different fields have slightly different seeds,” she said. “If you don’t order early enough, they can’t reserve you a field.”

Slight temperature variations in different fields can cause noticeable color variance.

“Different shades--the cameras pick it up. What you end up with is something that looks like it has got chicken pox,” she said.

But sometimes, that’s OK. After Christmas, townspeople dropped off their poinsettias at the Rose Float building. “We give up on unity of color but make up for it because it brings the community together,” she said.

Combined, husband and wife have volunteered for more than 70 years.

“Most of us started out as kids,” said Belle Gagne, 38. “It was the thing to do.”

Steve and Belle met as teenagers, working side-by-side on the float. The countless hours spent together, Steve Gagne adds, blossomed into a relationship.

Although the Gagnes grew up in Sierra Madre, they now live in Claremont. But they saw no reason to quit just because they moved some 20 miles away. A few former Sierra Madre residents even come back from the East every few years to help, Belle Gagne said.

“You’ll see such camaraderie,” Duran said. “The whole town comes together.”

The Gagnes have taken on a variety of roles in the association. They were in charge of fund-raising in 1989, the year their son Chris was born.

Six days after Chris’ birth, Steve and Belle Gagne could be seen exchanging $1 donations for roses during the town’s annual Fourth of July celebration.

That fall, many of Chris’ days were spent either in a crib in the float building or in a baby carrier on Belle’s back as she helped ready the float. Chris has followed in his parents’ footsteps.

On a mid-October evening, as Steve and Belle were inspecting the artist’s rendering of the float and comparing flower colors and textures, Chris, now 9, was sitting in the driver’s seat of the chassis, steering through an imaginary crowd of smiling faces.

“He’s worked on nine floats,” said Belle Gagne, smiling with pride. “This is his 10th.”

A Canvas for Community

During weekdays, strangers may expect phone calls to the Rose Float building to go unanswered. But Moran is almost always there, answering the phone with a cheery greeting: “Dream Machine.”

The Dream Machine, in reality, is a high-ceilinged yellow barn. Glitzy signs from past floats hang from the rafters. Signs for restrooms point to outside facilities. A radio plays ‘70s rock tunes.

Volunteers built the barn over three years in the ‘80s. Most of the building materials were donated. Before that, the float was built under a tent.

Construction began in August.

“My job is to provide a canvas for people to paint on,” said Moran, who welded much of the metal wire that supports the entire float.

He became involved with the float in the mid-’80s, and never left. “It’s been a great place to do art,” Moran said. “This is the most fun community service you can be in.”

Some volunteers have never lived in Sierra Madre, but are drawn to the float’s volunteer base.

Young, of Monrovia, grew up in Arcadia. When he heard of Sierra Madre’s operation, he “just started coming up here and sweeping floors,” he said. He had never had that opportunity in his hometown.

“Arcadia was just an organization that paid $60,000-$100,000 a year to have a float in the parade. They paid someone,” Young said. “It wasn’t hands-on.”

His wife, Karen, helps with flowering, but thinks he’s a little crazy for devoting so much time to the float. “She’s forever telling me, ‘Don’t you dare get another job there,’ ” he said.

The Proudest Moment

In the middle of December, fabric was “hogtied,” or clipped to the float’s frame, and sprayed with a hot chemical vapor that becomes a hard foam as it cools.

The float association’s president, Bob Young (no relation to Chip Young), stops by to watch.

Bob Young moved to Sierra Madre from Pasadena in 1992. Although he had looked at floats there every year at Rose Parade time, he was never involved because they were always professionally built.

When he moved to town, Bob Young heard of the organization and thought his engineering background may be an asset.

“I started out sweeping the floor,” he said. But last year, he worked on the float for hundreds of hours, helping to build a new chassis and working on animation.

Although he enjoys his job as a mechanical engineer, Bob Young said the float provides a creative outlet.

“We can create something,” he said, “and it’s something that the whole town can be proud of.”

The town’s pride is evident on any Dec. 31, around 9 p.m., when the float is taken to the parade starting point.

As the Gagnes have gotten older, they say, they’ve thought of celebrating a normal New Year’s Eve at a party, instead of freezing on board a float that is being towed down Sierra Madre Boulevard at 5 miles per hour in the dead of night, en route to Pasadena.

“We said we were going to quit last year,” Belle Gagne said, as her husband and the rest of the volunteers started laughing. “But it gets under your skin.”

Hundreds of townspeople wait for the finished float to make its debut in front of the Rose Float building on New Year’s Eve.

“It’s truly the most spectacular moment of the float’s existence,” Moran said. “It’s just a glow. The reward for all of the effort is right then.”