For NOAA’s Pacific Region, a ‘Hit’ Parade for the Fourth
Delores Clark
Office of Communications & External Affairs
July 22, 2009 — Everybody loves a parade — especially the town of Kailua in windward Oahu, Hawaii, which has held a Fourth of July parade every year for the past 62 years.
Employees from a number of NOAA offices in Hawaii participated in Kailua’s Fourth of July parade, which included a homemade NOAA float teeming with mission-related theme characters. Photo credit: Nori Shoji, NOAA.
The people of Kailua celebrate the nation’s independence with passion. Early in the morning, throngs of patient spectators seated in chairs, under tents, and even in portable swimming pools filled with water, line the parade route. After the parade, cookouts abound — the smell of teriyaki on the grill makes your mouth water. At dusk, everyone heads to the beach to watch the fireworks, and keiki (children) wave sparklers against a colorful night sky.
Given all the fanfare, NOAA’s Pacific Region Outreach Group chose to participate in Kailua’s parade for the first time as a way of reaching out to the community and bonding with other NOAA colleagues from throughout Hawaii.
In June, a team of enthusiastic and energetic NOAA personnel began designing NOAA’s first float for the parade; it would illustrate the agency’s broad range of science products and services, “from the depths of the oceans to the surface of the sun.” The group chose to fashion the float as an ahupua`a, an ancient Hawaiian land division system consisting of strips of land extending from the mountains to the sea.
It took about five full days for volunteers to collect enough cardboard and build the float and all its elements from scratch — mountains, sand, ocean waves, sea creatures and weather symbols. A large sun was created from a weather balloon covered in papier-mache.
Costumes were next, followed by the final missing piece: a NOAA jingle, written by Nadia Sbeih and Wendy Stovall, to be sung to the Village People’s hit song, “YMCA.”
On the morning of the parade, more than 40 members of the NOAA ohana (family), including representatives from nearly every office in Hawaii, had gathered to take part in the festivities.
Some of the NOAA parade volunteers rode on the float, while being escorted by costumed characters that included: two mermaids, a lightning bolt, a whale, a jellyfish, coral, Hurricane Iniki (which devastated or hit Hawaii in 1992), a GOES satellite, fish, an anemone, marine debris, several keiki (children) and a dog. Other volunteers marched wearing NOAA apparel, some carrying signs identifying various NOAA offices.
The NOAA float contingent received big cheers by numerous well-wishers along the parade route, including the judges. All in all, it was a great day in Kailua for the “N-O-A-A.”
Lyrics to a NOAA jingle sung by the members from NOAA’s Pacific Region to the tune of “YMCA” during the Fourth of July parade held in Kailua, Hawaii. (Lyrics written by Nadia Sbeih and Wendy Stovall). NOAA, the Science Agency, We’re talkin ‘bout the N-O-A-A. We’re who you call when you’re heading outside, We’re talkin ‘bout the N-O-A-A. We’ll get your beaches real clean, |
Ray Tanabe from NOAA's National Weather Service Honolulu Forecast Office, Pam Hironaga from NOAA Fisheries Office of Enforcement, and Nadia Sbeih from the NOS Pacific Services Center putting the finishing touches on the NOAA sun (a papier-mache weather balloon ) for the top of the NOAA float that appeared in the Kailua Fourth of July parade. Photo credit: Jayne Hirakawa, NOAA.
Nets and plastics are harmful to the marine environment say Carey Morishige and Chris McElwee from NOAA's Marine Debris Program. Photo credit: Delores Clark, NOAA.