Associated Press
SANTA FE — Try this: using rolled oats and cinnamon to imitate the look of the mud plaster of adobe.
That's what New Mexico did with its entry in today's Tournament of Roses Parade, which requires that the elaborate floats the event is known for be made of natural materials.
New Mexico's 55-foot long, 25-foot tall float, titled "Land of Enchantment,'' centers around an adobe-style church and was designed to showcase the state's cultural mix.
Some of the float's passengers represent Apache, Navajo and Pueblo Indian nations; another will portray a buffalo soldier — the nickname for black troops stationed in New Mexico in the late 1800s. Two flamenco dancers and a guitarist will perform on the float's tiny plaza.
Riding at the front as the float drives along the route in Pasadena will be Gov. Bill Richardson and first lady Barbara Richardson, seated on a buckboard and dressed in Western wear.
For the governor, "it'll be blue jeans,'' he said. "My black parade shirt — which I always wear — my bolo tie and boots.''
Major construction on New Mexico float's wrapped up around Thanksgiving. It was then painted so that volunteers decorating it would know the color of each section to place flowers, seeds, bark or leaves.
The float's large Indian-style baskets are made up of individually placed red-, kidney-, white-, black- and pinto beans. Pottery was reproduced in sesame seed, brown and gold flax seed and dark brown Niger seed with accents of dehydrated carrots and red peppers.
And, fitting in with the name of the parade, the float called for more than 30,000 roses in orange, red and yellow.
More than 150 current and former New Mexicans volunteered to spend a week decorating the float, housed in a warehouse in Duarte, Calif., near Pasadena, New Mexico tourism officials said.
The design also was intended to show off New Mexico's environmental diversity, with trees on the rear of the float, where Smokey Bear was stationed, made of cedar, pine and pine boughs.
The designers reproduced cacti with green leaves of ti — a member of the agave family. Yucca plants were made up of thousands of orchid florets.
The float cost an estimated $165,000, but Tourism Secretary Michael Cerletti said part of that was paid by the Santa Fe Opera, the Albuquerque Tricentennial committee, Acoma Pueblo and the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center.
New Mexico's entry was designed by Fiesta Parade Floats, which designed a dozen of this year's floats and has won the parade's top honor, the Sweepstakes Award, for the past 12 years.
The float is part of an aggressive campaign by state officials to promote tourism and movie making in New Mexico.
It will appear on television for only a few moments, but it will be seen by tens of millions who watch the parade coverage around the world.
"Not only do we get international and national exposure; we are able to get with our two biggest tourism markets,'' Richardson said.
The Tourism Department, which is leading the effort, also hopes to grab the attention of football fans by giving away free tickets to the Rose Bowl game between the University of Texas and the University of Southern California — both states that are big tourist markets for New Mexico.
The department also took its mobile visitor information center to a Pasadena site where the University of Texas scheduled a pep rally, and delivered 50,000 copies of the department's magazine, Hello New Mexico, to the Los Angeles Times for insertion in a parade issue.
In 1950, Santa Fe won the parade's National Trophy for its entry.
Its 40-foot wedge-shaped float was designed by artist Will Shuster and featured a reproduction of his famous creation Zozobra, or Old Man Gloom, a giant white puppet burned each year before the start of Santa Fe Fiesta.
Dancers from Taos Pueblo performed, historian Fray Angelico Chavez represented those who brought Catholicism to New Mexico, and mariachis from the Boys' Club played instruments behind a large yellow-and-red Zia symbol that was the backdrop for the 1949 fiesta queen's throne.
Anita Romero Jones, now 70, was that fiesta queen. She was 18 at the time, and recalls that she at first didn't want to go.
But today her memories of the parade are warm.
"I thought it was great,'' she said. "It was awesome.''
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