Cal Poly float wins award at 2025 Rose Parade

January 1, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

Cal Poly universities’ float, depicting Scotland’s most camera-averse underwater mystic on its best day, received the Leishman Public Spirit Award at the 136th Rose Parade held New Year’s Day.

Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and California State Polytechnic University in Pomona team up for the Pasadena classic every year. The entry — the students’ rolling floral bouquet to the world — is among the highest-profile student examples of Cal Poly’s hands-on ethos.

“We got the Leishman award for most outstanding floral presentation from a non-commercial entry,” said Collin Marfia, the Cal Poly Rose float president minutes after the awards were announced. “We’re just ecstatic! This is a floral award, and the last time we also won it was 2016.”

More than 60 students, equally split from each campus, worked to finish the float after the design was approved by Rose Parade officials last spring. Workshops open to all Cal Poly students were held throughout the year.

This years “Nellie’s Lakeside Laughs,” portrayed the beginnings of a great friendship between the Loch Ness monster and some eager Scottish counterparts. Nessie, said to live in the murky, 750-foot-deep freshwater lake in the northern part of the Scotland, looks over a selection of Scotland’s most iconic creatures.

The float features over 37,100 flowers as well as a variety of seeds and other organic decorations.

“We’re using lots of fresh florals again, statice (sea-lavender), irises, carnations, cattails, chrysanthemums and roses, of course,” Marfia said. “The water tiers near the front of the float are a mix of dry and fresh material, irises and other florals, blue and purple. There will also be a lot of arrangements of statice and baby’s breath and other things to emulate splashes and water sprays.”