rose-y outlook; Wisconsin native heads up 2023 Rose Parade, Rose Bowl
If there would have been such a thing as a bucket list back when she was growing up in Wisconsin’s snowy rural Northwoods, watching the televised New Year’s Day Rose Parade, someday seeing the Rose Parade in person would have been on Amy Kauzlaric Wainscott’s bucket list.
It all seemed so magical.
“I remember watching the Rose Parade as a child and being completely envious of the sunshine and the warm weather and wished that I could be there … watching those amazing floats, seeing those horses and listening to those marching bands,” recalled Wainscott, 57.
“Watching the Rose Parade and watching the Rose Bowl in Wisconsin, growing up, was a staple of life. It was what you did. It was cold outside, there was snow and there wasn’t a lot to do over the holidays except watch the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl Game.”
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And if you’re wondering, dreams do come true — sometimes in spades.
When the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association’s 2023 Rose Parade kicks off on Monday, Jan. 2, in keeping with the organization’s longstanding “Never on Sunday” rule, Wainscott will check the Rose Parade off her bucket list in ways she never could have imagined growing up
A Class of 1983 graduate of Northland Pines High School at 1,674-resident Eagle River up in Vilas County, Wainscott will be riding in the parade down Colorado Boulevard with her family as the red-jacketed President and Board Chairman of the Tournament of Roses’ 134th Rose Parade and 109th Rose Bowl Game.
Wainscott and her family, drawn by the Express Clydesdales, will be 21st in the parade lineup, followed by the Wisconsin Northwoods Marching Band.
“I want everybody in Wisconsin to watch the Rose Parade,” she said. “I want people to know that when they see me on TV waving, that I’m gonna be waving at them, hoping that they are feeling the joy and the happiness that I’m feeling at that very moment. I’ll be waving to you.”
Wainscott’s one-year tenure to head the 2023 Tournament of Roses was announced last January.
“It’s so exciting,” Wainscott said of her year-long tenure, which will draw to a close shortly after the Jan. 2 Rose Parade and Rose Bowl. “Never in a million years would I have thought that I would one day be standing here, part of this incredible organization and also representing the volunteers as the president of the Tournament of Roses. It’s pretty amazing when I think about it.”
Inside a massive barn in Pasadena, California, hundreds of volunteers are meticulously painting, gluing, snipping and arranging thousands of flowers for the return of the annual Rose Parade on New Year’s Day.
Serendipity comes calling
That Wainscott wound up in southern California — and eventually volunteering 30 years with the Tournament of Roses — is the stuff of pure serendipity.
While envious of the sun and warmth seen on Rose Parade and Rose Bowl telecasts from 138,699-resident Pasadena, a move to California wasn’t part of Wainscott’s plans until a Northland Pines classmate invited her to make the move.
“My best friend was going to be going to school in Pasadena,” she recalled. “One day during a class she asked me if I wanted to move to California with her. I said, ‘OK!’ We packed up a car and we moved out to California. Really no plan, nothing in particular I had planned out. I was able to find a job, find an apartment and just really life took over and here I am.”
Wainscott, who studied at Pasadena City College and Cal Poly Pomona, would work for a construction management company owned by a Tournament volunteer member.
“I was familiar with the Tournament of Roses, listening to his stories, and leading up to the parade he would have different parade duties he was involved in,” Wainscott recalled. “I saw what he was doing.”
In the early 1990s, she was part of the construction management firm for the Rose Bowl press box renovation project. During that time she got to meet people from the City of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl stadium, and Tournament members who were very involved in this project.
So when the project was completed in 1992, they encouraged her to join the Tournament of Roses.
“They were looking for more women to join the tournament and they were looking for people with enthusiasm and some time to commit to helping the parade and the game happen every year, so I applied for membership and was accepted,” Wainscott said.
The 32-student Northland Pines High School Band in Eagle River, under the direction of Forrest Mann, is one of eight northern and north central Wisconsin high school bands collaboratively comprising the nearly 400-member Wisconsin Northwoods Marching Band, slated to perform in the tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. on Monday, Jan. 2. Northland Pines and Eagle River are the alma mater and hometown of 2023 Tournament of Roses Association President Amy Kauzlaric Wainscott, who is heading this year’s Rose Parade and Rose Bowl. Said Mann of the Wisconsin Northwoods Marching Band’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform in the Rose Parade, “These students are making a remarkable commitment to represent their communities on the national stage.”
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Joining the Association in 1992, Wainscott worked her first parade in 1993.
The upcoming Jan. 2 Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game are the culminating highlights of Wainscott’s three decade all-volunteer career as a member of the nonprofit Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association.
“Apparently somebody saw something in me and they thought I should be in a leadership position,” Wainscott said.
Throughout her extensive tournament career, Wainscott has served on a wide variety of committees. The first woman to chair Parade Operations, Wainscott was elected a Tournament Director in 2011 and to the Executive Committee in 2014, which put her on the eight-year leadership track to her current role as President and Board Chairman.
“It’s one of the craziest hobbies you could possible have,” said Wainscott of her volunteer position on the Executive Committee. “It’s quite a commitment. It’s been a full-time job for the last eight years. There’s a lot of meetings. There’s a lot of business to be conducted.”
Wisconsin native Wainscott is the fourth woman as to serve as tournament president, following in the footsteps of Libby Evans Wright (2005-06), Sally Bixby (2012-13) and Laura Farber (2019-20).
“It’s an incredible honor whether you’re a man or a woman,” she said of being named president. “To have the organization, the volunteers, trust you to represent them worldwide … is very humbling. I had three incredibly strong women that came before me as president of the organization. It’s because of their grit and their tenacity and their vision that I’m standing here today, and I am hoping that I’m going to motivate more women within the organization that they can be in leadership, that they can be president. There are leadership opportunities and I’m hoping that I’m motivating more women to take on that challenge.”
A B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, opens the 108th Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California. Jan. 1, 2022. America’s Air Force participated in America’s New Year Celebration that includes the Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl Game, to kick off 2022 and a yearlong celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Department of the Air Force.
A Midwestern touch
While a longtime Californian, Wainscott hasn’t forgotten his Midwestern and Wisconsin roots.
Wainscott and her husband, Tim, are frequent visitors to northern Wisconsin, where they’ve had a vacation home for the past 15-plus years on Buck Lake in Rhinelander, a convenient home-away-from-home base for visiting Amy’s family — mom Arlene Kauzlaric and brother Jim Kauzlaric in hometown Eagle River, sister Diana Wright in Rhinelander, and brother Dale Kauzlaric in Rothschild, along with various nieces and nephews. Another brother, Jeff Kauzlaric, lives on the west coast in Vancouver, Washington.
The upcoming Rose Parade will have a definite Midwestern presence, with marching bands from Pella, Iowa; Rosemount, Minnesota; Rockford, Michigan; and northern Wisconsin among the 21 bands performing.
Members of the Wisconsin Northwoods Marching Band, created in 2018 to appear in the Tournament of Roses Parade on Jan. 2 in Pasadena, Calif., is seen practicing in November at Northland Pines High School in Eagle River, alma mater and hometown of 2023 Tournament of Roses President Amy Kauzlaric Wainscott. The composite band, numbering nearly 400 students from eight high schools in northern and north central Wisconsin, will be performing “Beautiful Wisconsin,” a combination of “On Wisconsin” and “America, the Beautiful” specially composed for the band by award-winning retired 1969-2019 University of Wisconsin Badgers Marching Band Director Mike Leckrone.
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Near and dear to Wainscott’s heart is the Wisconsin Northwoods Marching Band, a nearly 400-student collaboration band drawn from Wainscott’s alma mater, Northland Pines High School, as well as Lakeland Union High School in Minocqua, Three Lakes High School, Antigo High School, Merrill High School, Mosinee High School, Wausau East High School and DC Everest High School in Schofield.
“It’s gonna be a terrific event for those kids Up North — and for the whole state,” Wainscott said. “I think it’s great. It’s so exciting. When I first started this initiative, focusing on the Northwoods and north central Wisconsin, my stomping grounds, I was hoping for maybe 150, 175 members. To hear that they’re bringing so many students makes my heart happy.”
The Wisconsin Northwoods Marching Band will be playing “Beautiful Wisconsin,” a combination of “On Wisconsin” and “America, the Beautiful” specially composed for the band by award-winning 1969-2019 University of Wisconsin Badgers Marching Band Director Mike Leckrone.
“When he heard about it, he offered to compose a song for the band to play,” Wainscott said. “It’s very, very cool.”
In advance of the Rose Parade, the Wisconsin Northwoods Marching Band will be performing at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and at the Tournament’s Band Fest at Pasadena City College.
“They’ve been practicing hard, they’ve really been working hard to condition for this,” Wainscott said. “To play and to march for 5-1/2 miles — these are athletes as well as musicians. The whole state of Wisconsin should be proud of these kids and their communities and their parents.”
Only in Lake Geneva do people water ski in December … Freezin For a Reason 2022
Watch December water skiing on Geneva Lake
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Watch December water skiing on Geneva Lake
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Watch the skiing ballet line on Geneva Lake
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Watch swivel skiing on Geneva Lake in December
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Freezine for a Reason 2022
Water skiing in December?
Only in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, do people water ski in December. It was part of the annual Freezin for a Reason event held Saturday. The event raised funds for local Walworth County charities. The highlight of the day was a performance by the Twin Lakes Aquanuts.
Lee Newspapers
Watch now: flips on Geneva Lake in December
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