For over a century, the young women — and the occasional roguish young man — who try out for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Royal Court have all been from the West San Gabriel Valley.
Practically by law, because the TofR is essentially the oldest and most powerful civic organization in these parts. At least by, well, royal decree.
Then, all of a sudden, the Tournament announces this week that it’s expanding the boundaries of eligibility to include the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Eagle Rock and Highland Park.
What gives? An overwhelming desire for hipper girls from two of the hippest towns on the planet? Hey, we’ve already got West Altadena.
Is it because not enough potential princesses and their annual queen have been showing up? The Tournament has said for decades that over 1,000 girls show up for the initial tryouts at its headquarters in the Wrigley Mansion on South Orange Grove Boulevard. Hard number to quantify. Some of our reporting in recent years might seem to indicate that more like 500 have been standing on the sidewalk for hours to make their initial pitch to become local royalty. Even if that’s the case, it’s certainly a wide talent pool already.
Applicants for the court previously have had to live within the wide confines of the Pasadena Area Community College District, PCC’s home territory, from where applicants must be a full-time resident and a senior in high school or enrolled as a full-time student (minimum 12 units) in any accredited school or college.
That includes Pasadena, Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, South Pas, San Marino, Sierra Madre, Arcadia and some unincorporated areas.
Now, along with the two new L.A. neighborhoods, new areas of San Gabriel and Alhambra are included as well. Applicants for this coming year’s court must identify as a female, be at least 17 years of age by Dec. 31, 2024 and not more than 21 years of age before Jan. 5, 2025 and possess at least a 2.0 grade point average in both the current and previous years’ course work.
Whatever the reason, it will be interesting for cultural and sociological reasons to see if this fall there are on the order of 2,000 young women in Laura Ashley mid-calf floral dresses, or the equivalent, initially vying for the crown. More, the merrier.
The Tournament has already broken barriers. Its courts for years now have been nothing if not diverse. The brilliant Queen Louise Siskel of San Marino broke most of the molds remaining a couple of years back when she became the first Jewish, eyeglass-wearing and self-identified LGBTQ queen. When she went off to the University of Chicago to study biology, she wrote: “I used the position to advocate for inclusion within the organization, to speak about the importance of scientific literacy, and to grapple with the history of the tradition I found myself participating in.”
Now, the Royal Court will soon have its first L.A. women. A Goth queen from Figueroa Street? Why not.
Wednesday at random
It’s rather hilarious, simultaneously heartbreaking, that a man who wants once again to be president of these diverse United States of America can’t tell the difference between two California politicians, one of whom is, what, 5-foot 6, and one who is on the order of 6-foot 5. Yet Donald Trump claimed that he heard Willie Brown, the shorter one, diss his former inamorata, Kamala Harris, while on a crash-landing helicopter ride in New York City, whereas Brown says he has never been on a helicopter with Trump. The tall California pol who it turns out was on the crashing copter with Trump was Nate Holden, father to Pasadena Assemblyman Chris Holden. The only similarities between the two are that both happen to be California Democrats and … oh, both are African American. What an absurd situation, one that would be scandalous lying from someone who wanted to be the leader of the free world if he didn’t spout so much other idiotic nonsense that this nonsense barely stands out … It is truly not to dismiss the naming of great architect Henry Greene’s own home in Altadena as a Los Angeles County landmark to note that it looks nothing like Greene & Greene’s signature shingled bungalows and everything like every other house on its street, tranquil La Solana Drive: Mediterranean Revival.
Write the public editor at lwilson@scng.com
