Casino float wins Queen's Award at Grand Floral Parade

PORTLAND -- Spirit Mountain Casino’s Grand Floral Parade float, “Bloom’n the Beauty Within,” received the Queen’s Award for outstanding non-animated float on Saturday, June 6.

This year’s Portland Rose Festival was themed “Bloomin’ Good Time” and the Spirit Mountain Casino Grand Floral Parade was the highlight of the festival.

Spirit Mountain Casino was the parade’s presenting sponsor for the fifth straight year and Tribal member Steve Bobb Sr. once again designed the casino’s float.

The parade, which is more than 100 years old, starts in the parking garage at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum and travels through the streets of downtown Portland to Lincoln High School – about a four-mile journey from start to finish.

The ninth entry in this year’s parade was Spirit Mountain Casino’s float. The “elegant” float featured three Tribal youth at different stages of life. The design was a celebration of the future and featured the progression of beauty from within. Each of the three characters appeared to “bloom” from the center of a Nootka rose.

The first rose featured Spirit Mountain Casino Sponsorship Administrator Jocelyn Huffman’s daughter, Shelby, as the infant model. In the second phase, Bobb used his granddaughter, 9-year-old Keira, as the model and 21-year-old Gabrielle Colton, daughter of Carol Colton and granddaughter of Jo Ann and Mike Comeaux, was the eldest model surrounded by a fully blossomed rose.

Bobb said he felt pride when he watched the float emerge from the Coliseum.

“There is always some excitement when you take something from paper, from an idea and a thought, and develop it and then see it done in the form that it is,” said Bobb. “There’s a little bit of excitement that comes with that.”

Bobb said he loves that the parade brings exposure to the Tribe in front of the entire Northwest.

“They figure there are 400,000 people just at the parade from all over the Northwest,” said Bobb. “To get that type of exposure for us that we are always trying to get out there – well, that’s pretty major. I’m proud to be Grand Ronde and proud to let people know that. The Grand Ronde people are not the newcomers. We are the people of this valley. We are still walking the footsteps of our ancestors today, right now, here.”

Bobb said he has followed the Portland Rose Festival since he was a child, reading about it in the papers. He said he was always interested in participating in such a “huge, major” event.

“There is some pretty wonderful stuff there that people do,” said Bobb. “And now to be a part of it, that is something I never thought I would have been involved with. To have our Tribe’s sign and name everywhere, I would have never thought of anything like that. And, here we are.”

Fifteen floats were entered in this year’s Grand Floral Parade and Portland General Electric’s entry won the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde award for best depiction of community spirit. The lively float featured sixth-graders selected to participate after sharing examples of how their families had put together emergency kits or a disaster plan.

Also participating in the Grand Floral Parade were members of Tribal Royalty, who distributed cedar roses to parade watchers lining the streets.

Tribal Elders and casino employees helped decorate the float on Wednesday and Thursday, June 3 and 4, in advance of float judging day held on Friday, June 5.

Attending the parade were, among others, Tribal Council members Cheryle A. Kennedy and Jon A. George with their respective family members, as well as Tribal members Chelsea Clark, Shannon Simi and Francene Ambrose who joined Tribal Council Senior Administrative Assistant Lauri Smith and many Tribal Royalty family members.