“We are absolutely thrilled to have won this,” said Julie Saupe, president and chief executive officer of ACVB.

Jeanette Moores, ACVB’s acting vice president of marketing and communications, said the parade was viewed by about a million people along the route, plus 40 million television viewers across the United States and 150 territories around the globe.

The theme for the 120th Rose Bowl parade was “Hats Off to Entertainment.”

AVCB also got one of several dozen booths to talk about Alaska to visitors of the parade and football game in Pasadena. The Alaska contingent compared the experience to consumer events in China, Hong Kong and Japan.

The group handed out brochures packed with information about the state’s 50th anniversary, the Alaska Railroad and more. Members also collected hundreds of names from people wanting more information about visiting Alaska, she said.

Float sponsors included ACVB, the Alaska Travel Industry Association, the Alaska Railroad Corp., the Alaska Statehood Celebration Commission and the Anchorage Statehood Celebration.

It was designed by Fiesta Parade Floats designer Raul Rodriguez. The design incorporated all five major Alaska Native cultural groups; wildlife, including a bald eagle, humpback whale, moose, bear, puffins, salmon, king crab and walrus; and the state’s official sport, dog mushing.

Waving to the crowds from the top of the float, in her parka and mukluks, was Libby Riddles of Homer, who in 1985 became the first woman to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

“It’s not every day that you get to represent your state, and it’s always good for dog mushing,” said Riddles, who also helped the Alaska contingent connect with California mushers to find husky puppies for the post-parade booth.

Riddles was joined on the float by Miss World Eskimo-Indian Olympics recipient Kimberly Dullen of Fairbanks, WEIO record holder Manuel Tumuluk, Stephen Blanchett of the Native American Music Award-winning group Pamyua and others.

An Alaska Native dance team walked and danced for the crowds along several miles of the parade route.

Volunteers helped create the team of six huskies on the float out of pampas grass, Riddles said

The Rose Bowl Parade has an interesting history. The first staging of what is known today as the Rose Bowl Parade was in 1890, sponsored by the Pasadena Valley Hunt Club, whose members were former residents of the East and Midwest eager to show their new home’s mild winter weather.

Over the next few years, the festival expanded to include marching bands and motorized floats. Games held on the town lot, re-named Tournament Park in 1900, included ostrich races, bronco-busting demonstrations and a race between a camel and an elephant, which was won by the elephant.

Reviewing stands were built along the parade route and East Coast newspapers began to take notice of the event. By 1895, the Tournament of Roses Association was formed to take charge of the festival.

In 1902 the festivities were enhanced by adding a football game, the first post-season college football game ever held. Stanford University took on the University of Michigan. After the Michigan’s Wolverines flattened Stanford 49-0, the West Coast team gave up in the third quarter.

For several years afterward, tournament officials gave up football in favor of Roman-style chariot races, but in 1916 football returned to stay and the crowds soon outgrew the stands in Tournament Park. A new stadium, now known as the Rose Bowl, hosted its first New Year’s football game in 1923.

The Rose Bowl Parade today features elaborate floats with high-tech computerized animation and exotic natural materials from around the world. Although a few floats are still built exclusively by volunteers from sponsoring communities, most are built by professional float companies and take nearly a year to construct. The pay-off comes each New Year’s Day when the floats are seen by millions of viewers around the world.