16
S moke S ignals
JUNE 1, 2017
Grand Floral Parade float honors Community Fund
Brent Merrill
If you go
Smoke Signals staff writer
Members of the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde are a proud
people who have overcome much
to achieve Tribal Restoration and
carve out a place of respect in Or-
egon.
This year’s annual Portland
Rose Festival will culminate three
weeks of events on the riverfront in
downtown Portland with the Spirit
Mountain Casino Grand Floral Pa-
rade and the Tribe’s pride in telling
its story of achievement will be on
full display during the parade on
Saturday, June 10.
“We are the title sponsor of the
Grand Floral Parade,” Tribal mem-
ber and Spirit Mountain Casino
Sponsorship Administrator Jocelyn
Huffman said. “We prepare for this
event all year.”
Huffman said that the Tribe’s
float entry is being designed by a
design company instead of having
it created by Tribal members, such
as Tribal Elder Steve Bobb Sr., as
has been done in previous years.
The float company Huffman and
the Tribe work with each year is SCI
3.2 of Portland, which is owned and
operated by Gene Dent and his staff
of designers, builders and artists.
SCI 3.2 is the official float builder
for the Portland Rose Festival’s
Grand Floral Parade and the com-
pany creates as many as 60 floats
annually for the 4.2-mile parade.
“For the float itself we have gone
through a little different design
process this year,” Huffman said.
Spirit Mountain Casino
Grand Floral Parade
When: 10 a.m. Saturday, June
10
Where: Memorial Coliseum
down Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard to downtown Port-
land ending at Lincoln High
School
Grand marshal: 1977 Portland
Trail Blazers
Admission: Indoor: $30
reserved and $15 supersaver;
Outoor: $30 reserved chairs,
$25 reserved bleachers
More info: www.rosefestival.
org
“We went in and spoke with the
company about things that were
going on in the Tribe. We are focus-
ing a lot on the 20-year anniversary
of the Spirit Mountain Community
Fund. You’ll see that pop up a lot in
the Grand Floral Parade.”
Huffman said the float is named
“Persistence of Culture” and she
said the story portrayed in the float
concept showcases the Tribe’s de-
termination to remain true to who
Tribal members are.
“This story shows the continuous
struggle to retain culture and tra-
ditional knowledge, and for us as
people to stay afloat during trying
times,” Huffman said. “The charac-
ters in this story are persistent, as
HELP BUILD OUR FLOAT
2017 Spirit Mountain Grand Floral Parade
June 7 – 8, 2017
VOLUNTEERS
Room for 30 Employees (First Come First Served). All volunteers will be
entered in a raffle for City Fair passes with unlimited carnival rides or Rose
Cup Race tickets. Folding chairs will be available for those who can not
stand for any length of time.
WHERE
Meet at the Main Entrance (by Mountain View Sports Bar) at 7:45am.
The bus departs at 8:15am and returns to the casino at 4:30pm.
A continental breakfast and box lunch will be provided. When calling to
reserve your space, please specify what kind of sandwich you prefer
(Ham, Turkey, Roast Beef or Tuna).
PTO
If this is your regularly scheduled day to work, you must request PTO
from your department.
CONTACT
Please call Sponsorship Administrator Jocelyn Huffman at 503-879-3054
by June 5, 2017 to register.
Don’t forget to place your lunch order, and get any necessary PTO approved.
are their descendants. The knowl-
edge resides inside of us and in the
landscape that surrounds us, it is
as old as time itself, and our canoes
with their strength and beauty
were made for these waters.”
Huffman said the theme for
this year is about people joining
together.
“It was kind of an idea of different
walks of life coming together and
being persistent and determined to
work together to get through things,”
Huffman said. “We’ve involved the
canoe in the float this year.”
Dent, whose company has built
every float the Tribe has entered
in the Grand Floral Parade during
the last 21 years, said the Tribe’s
float entry was not an easy design,
but that he and his staff are happy
with the outcome.
“This one is one of the really
charming ones with the relation-
ship of the animals and the pres-
ence of the canoe and the dynamic
energy of the water composition,”
Dent said. “It’s got some challenges
for us in terms of floral content. It’s
a really interesting story – the im-
ages of the characters in the canoe
is really compelling.”
Tribal member and Spirit Moun-
tain Community Fund Director
Mychal Cherry said she and her
staff were honored that the fund
is being highlighted on this year’s
Grand Floral Parade float entry.
“I am thrilled that the Spirit
Mountain Community Fund will
be highlighted at the Rose Festi-
val this year,” Cherry said. “As we
embark on our 20-year anniversary
with $74 million in giving, the tim-
ing is perfect. We appreciate how
the Rose Festival values the diverse
culture of the community and the
positive impact they have on so
many lives. Attending the Grand
Floral Parade is an annual tradi-
tional favorite and with hundreds
of thousands of spectators, we sin-
cerely appreciate the opportunity
to show community members how
much our Tribe and its members
care about Oregon.”
Huffman said the opportunities
presented by sponsoring the annual
event in Portland represent one of
the most important, if not most vis-
ible, marketing opportunities the
Tribe and its main business – Spirit
Mountain Casino – have each year.
“For us at the casino it’s a great
branding tool,” Huffman said. “The
advertisement and marketing that
comes along with the Grand Floral
Parade is phenomenal. There really
is no way we could go in and do a
media buy to get the kind of cover-
age we get throughout this event.”
Huffman said Tribal member and
Tribal staff volunteers will be in Port-
land on June 7-9 to work on the float
entry’s final touches. There is room
for 30 volunteers and a bus departs
from the main entrance of Spirit
Mountain Casino by the Moun-
tain View Sports Bar at 8:15 a.m.
Wednesday and Thursday, June 7-8,
and Tribal members are welcome to
also help out on Friday, June 9, but
they will have to provide their own
transportation, Huffman said.
Volunteers will be entered into a
raffle to win City Fair passes and
unlimited carnival rides or Rose
Cup Race tickets. A continental
breakfast and box lunch will be
provided for volunteers making
the trip. Interested volunteers can
register for the trip by contacting
Huffman at 503-879-3054 by Mon-
day, June 5.
Before Tribal volunteers can get
their hands on the float to decorate,
Dent and his team invest massive
amounts of time to prepare the float
entry for the membership’s final
decorations.
“We just got the hawk character
up and installed on the canoe shape
and it’s really powerful,” Dent said
in a telephone interview from his
office in Portland. “Animals are my
favorite. Animals definitely bring a
lot of interest and charm and pres-
ence to the floats."
Dent said it takes about 2,000
hours of work to get a float as com-
plex as the Tribe’s entry ready to
decorate. He said it takes another
2,000 hours of work to decorate it.
“It all comes from the original com-
position of the image,” Dent said of the
float-building process from concept
through to the day of the parade. “Joc-
elyn sent us a fairly detailed image of
the characters and the canoe and the
idea of the water. Then we prepared
a blackline and she responded to that
with suggestions.”
A blackline is a drawing of what
the float could look like.
“Once that is approved we devel-
op a color and once that’s approved
we have a mechanical meeting in-
house where we determine how we
are going to build the float,” Dent
said. “It’s at that time we select
a chassis that is going to propel
it and we talk about construction
techniques and covering techniques
and flowering techniques because
what the ultimate surface is deter-
mines how something is going to
be created.”
Dent said float construction is
different if they are using fresh
flowers versus plant materials.
Once the direction of the build is
determined, Dent’s team has a
more detailed meeting to create the
different parts of the float and how
each will be built.
“Once that’s done it gets turned
over to the fabricators and away
we go,” Dent said. “Everything is
broken down into really detailed
mechanical drawings. That typical-
ly takes 30 to 40 hours of drafting
to create the float.”
Dent said after the prop welders
finish their work, the float then goes
to the assembly department. After
the structural pieces are added, it
goes to the art department where
three to four people spend two weeks
putting it all together for Tribal
member and Tribal staff decorators.
Last year, the Tribe’s float re-
ceived the Queen’s Award for most
outstanding non-animated float
during the Grand Floral Parade
judging.
This year’s parade will feature 16
full-size all-floral floats, 13 all-flo-
ral mini-floats, 13 marching bands
and 22 equestrian units among the
many other entries.
“The Grand Floral Parade is
a special partnership because it
allows us to tell the Tribe’s story,”
Huffman said.