Boeing Rose Parade Float Offers A Glimpse "Through The Years"
From rock 'n' roll tunes of the '50s to the high-tech boom of the '90s-the Boeing Rose Parade float, "Through the Years," celebrates 50 years of good times. Taking viewers on a trip down memory lane on New Year's Day, the Boeing float concludes with a salute to American ingenuity and freedom everywhere.
"We are pleased to be part of this American tradition, as we celebrate our third consecutive year of participation in the Tournament of Roses Parade," said Jim Albaugh, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Space and Communications. "The Boeing Company is about innovation and exploring new frontiers, and our float captures five decades of creativity and ingenuity of people not only in aerospace but everywhere. It also celebrates the freedom we have in this country to continue to invent the future."
The Boeing float, which spans 130 feet, is also the longest in the parade. Such a creation is no small feat; it will take a crew of approximately 1500 enthusiastic Boeing volunteers to bring the float to life. In fact, five of these volunteers will help make the float especially dynamic by riding on the float dressed like legends such as Elvis®, an Apollo® astronaut, a disco dancer, the bicyclist from the movie E.T., and a country-western singer.
Building on the overarching Rose Parade theme, "Good Times," Boeing's entry commemorates the many great times that Americans have enjoyed and the infinite possibilities the future holds. The king of rock 'n' roll himself, Elvis, leads the "Through the Years" voyage as the head of the float, while the second segment will feature highlights from the '60s and '70s, including the history-making missions to the moon, the introduction of Big Bird®, a yellow submarine and a disco dancer.
Viewers will continue on the decade-by-decade journey by cruising through the '80s-marked with advances such as a space shuttle atop a 747, a Rubik's Cube® and compact discs-and the high-tech boom of the '90s, signified by cellular phones, pagers, satellite dishes and computers displaying the all-too-familiar greeting, "You have mail."
The finale for the memory-filled decade-train is a resolute bald eagle, which celebrates freedom today and beyond. More information about the Boeing Rose Parade float can be found at http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/roseparade.
The 113th Rose Parade will take place on Tuesday, January 1, 2002 at 8:00 a.m. (PST) in Pasadena, Calif. America's favorite quiz and talk show host, Regis Philbin, will lead the 2002 festivities as Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade.
Boeing Space and Communications (S&C), headquartered in Seal Beach, Calif., is the world's largest space and communications company. A unit of The Boeing Company, S&C provides integrated solutions in launch services, human space flight and exploration, missile defense, and information and communications. It is NASA's largest contractor; a leading provider of space-based communications; the primary systems integrator for U.S. missile defense; and a leading provider of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The global enterprise has customers worldwide and manufacturing operations throughout the United States and Australia.
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