LIFE COMES UP ROSES FOR LOCAL ORGANIZATION

Linda Williams, Mary Klaproth, Carolyn Thompson and Sarah Yamnitz pause while preparing chrysanthemums for use on the city of St. Louis Rose Bowl Parade float.

The city of St. Louis' Rose Bowl Parade float being towed by Clydesdales during the Jan. 2 parade. It was voted most beautiful in the non-commercial float category.

Life has been good lately for some of the members of the Town and Country Family Community Education group. In fact, life's been coming up roses, along with chrysanthemums, onion seeds, crushed rice and the myriad other organic materials needed to build a float for the annual Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, Calif.

Sarah Yamnitz, Carolyn Thompson, Mary Klaproth and Linda Williams, all members of the Jackson area Town and Country FCE, recently returned from nine-day visit to Pasadena, Calif. where they helped build a prize-winning Rose Bowl Parade float.

"I have watched the Rose Bowl Parade for years and years and I always said that I'd like to see it in person," said Klaproth.

She and her friends got the chance to do much more than view the parade when one of Klaproth's relatives made a donation to the Lutheran Laymen's League and in returned received information on how to get involved in building the Lutheran Church's float for the Rose Bowl Parade. The four followed up on the information and were invited to take help with the flurry of float building the takes places in the final days of each year.

On Dec. 31, the three found themselves in the Rosemont Building across the street from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Sixteen floats representing organizations from throughout the country, including the Lutheran Church, were being constructed in the building.

"When we got there, they told us that the Lutheran float was already done," recalled Carolyn Thompson, "so someone said, 'Well, you can go work on the city of St. Louis' float.'

"That's how the Lutheran Church raises money to build their float each year," she added. "They contract out workers to help build the other floats."

The four agreed that the process of constructing the mammoth parade pieces was interesting.

Probably most surprising is the fact that not all Rose Bowl floats are constructed of roses.

"You're not restricted to roses," said Yamnitz. "You could use any organic material. We used chrysanthemums and a lot of times when they needed white spaces, crushed rice was used. We also used onion seeds.

"One float there had a turtle on it and they used the skins of eggplants to build the turtle's shell," she added.

When the four joined the others working on the city of St. Louis' entry, they found that constructing a float is a very specialized and involved process.

Yamnitz explained that many of the floats were constructed of wood and chicken wire over which a papier-mache foam is sprayed. On top of this foam, the design of the float is painted in color. With this design, float workers are able to "paint" the float by matching the color painted on the float shell with appropriately-colored flowers or other organic material -- coloring by numbers on a larger scale.

While the shells are often completed during the summer prior to the parade, the application of flowers takes place only a few short days before the event. In order to ensure that the flowers look fresh on the day of the parade, each is inserted into an individual vial of water much like the vials florists use for individual rosebuds. Once the flowers are inserted into the water vial, it is stuck into the papier-mache foam.

"Basically what we did was cut flowers so they would fit in the little vials," said Yamnitz. "We also worked with chrysanthemums and what we did with those was to cut the stems from them and then stick toothpicks into the bottom of the blossoms so they could be stuck into the foam."

Klaproth, who had waited so long just to be able to see the parade, was fascinated by the construction process.

"There were times when we were really working hard," she laughed, "but there were also times when we walked around and looked at how the other floats were being built."

Finally, the work of the four local women and the many other float workers came together with the start of the parade on Jan. 2.

"This was the 106th parade and they have the parade down to a science," said Klaproth. "They told us that our float would be by at 9:20 that morning and at 9:20 it came by.

"When we finally got to see the float, we thought it was beautiful," she recalled.

Williams agreed that seeing the float was impressive, but it was also impressive to see the several celebrities who were on parade floats, including golf great Chi Chi Rodriguez and country singer Lee Greenwood. Equally impressive for Altenburg native Williams was getting to see several transplanted Altenburg natives working on floats.

"Some of the first people we got to know when we got there were a couple who were originally from Altenburg who had moved to California several years ago," said Williams.

In the end, the work was not only rewarding, but rewarded; the city of St. Louis float, which consisted of a Christmas scene being towed by Clydesdales, was selected as the most beautiful in the non-commercial category.

"We like to think that [the award] was because we had something to do with the float's construction," Klaproth joked.

While the trip provided a good vacation for the women, the four can often be found among the other nine members of the FCE group working on the service projects and other work with which the organization is involved.

"We try to do a lot of community service work," said Yamnitz, who explained that the many FCE clubs statewide are associated with the University of Missouri Extension Service.

"Each year we try to pick a project that we work on all year," she added. "Last year we worked with the Women's Safehouse and this year we'll be working to help the Cottonwood Treatment Center."

The group has also donated funds to help the victims of flooding in Georgia, the Southeast Missourian's Toybox Christmas program and the Salvation Army.

Yamnitz encouraged those who wish to join the local extension club to call her at 243-5570.