For over a century, the young women – and the occasional mischievous young man – who compete for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Royal Court have all come from the West San Gabriel Valley.
Practically by law, because the TofR is essentially the oldest and most powerful civil organization in these parts. At least by, well, royal decree.
Then this week, the tournament suddenly announced that eligibility was being expanded to include the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Eagle Rock and Highland Park.
What’s up with this? An overwhelming desire for hipper girls from two of the hippest cities in the world? Hey, we already have West Altadena.
Is it because not enough potential princesses and their annual queen showed up? The tournament has said for decades that over 1,000 girls show up for the first tryouts at its headquarters in the Wrigley Mansion on South Orange Grove Boulevard. That number is difficult to quantify. Some of our reports from the past few years seem to indicate that it was more like 500 girls standing on the sidewalk for hours for their first chance to be among the local queens. Even if that’s the case, the talent pool is certainly deep already.
Previously, applicants for admission to the court had to live within the broad boundaries of the Pasadena Area Community College District, the home territory of the PCC. Applicants had to be permanent residents and be in the graduating class of high school or enrolled as a full-time student (at least 12 units) at an accredited school or college.
These include Pasadena, Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, South Pas, San Marino, Sierra Madre, Arcadia and some unincorporated areas.
In addition to the two new LA districts, the new areas of San Gabriel and Alhambra are now included. Applicants for next year’s court must identify as female, be at least 17 years old on December 31, 2024, and no older than 21 before January 5, 2025, and have a grade point average of at least 2.0 in both the current and previous year.
Whatever the reason, it will be interesting for cultural and sociological reasons to see whether 2,000 or so young women in floral dresses by Laura Ashley or similar vie for the crown this autumn. The more the merrier.
The tournament has already broken barriers. Its courts have been consistently diverse for years. The brilliant Queen Louise Siskel of San Marino broke most of the lingering paradigms a few years ago when she became the first Jewish, glasses-wearing, self-identified LGBTQ queen. When she went 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 education, and to engage with the history of the tradition I was a part of.”
Now the Royal Court will soon have its first LA wife. A gothic queen from Figueroa Street? Why not.
Wednesday randomly
It’s both pretty funny and heartbreaking that a man who wants to be president again of this diverse United States of America can’t tell the difference between two California politicians, one of whom is, what, 5’6″ and the other about 6’5″. And yet Donald Trump claimed to have heard Willie Brown, the shorter of the two, insult his former lover Kamala Harris during a helicopter ride in New York City, whereas Brown says he was never in a helicopter with Trump. The tall California politician who, it turns out, was in the crashing helicopter with Trump was Nate Holden, the father of Pasadena Rep. Chris Holden. The only similarities between the two are that they both happen to be California Democrats and… oh, both African American. What an absurd situation! It would be a scandalous lie for someone who wants to be the leader of the free world not to spout so much other idiotic nonsense that this nonsense hardly goes unnoticed… It is truly no detraction from the designation of the great architect Henry Greene’s Altadena home as a Los Angeles County Landmark to note that it looks nothing like the typical Greene & Greene clapboard bungalows and just like every other house on the street, quiet La Solana Drive: Mediterranean Revival.
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