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SANDY — A large, colorful cricket towers over a foam man, who holds a styrofoam seagull at the ready. Cornhusks stand by as seagulls get ready to attack the lunging insect.
Volunteers from the Sandy Crescent Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stood beside the float Friday, dressed in pioneer clothing and with baskets of taffy and candy, ready to give facts about the process of building their float and the meaning behind each aspect of it.
The float has as much meaning as it does artistic depth; the seagulls represent the faith of Utahns to have miracles in the modern day like their pioneer ancestors of the past.
"We wanted the youth in our stake to really feel that in their lives; they can see miracles like this miracle of the seagulls — so that was the idea, is to just represent faith," said Laura Astle, one of the builders of the float.
The Sandy Crescent Stake float is one of 30 showcased at the Days of '47 preview party, a two-day event taking place on Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Mountain America Expo Center.
Within the preview party's two-day period, around 20,000 to 30,000 individuals will view the floats that will participate in Monday's Days of '47 Parade in Salt Lake City, said Cheri Colligan, the preview party's coordinator.
When Colligan and her husband started organizing the annual party 29 years ago, the previews were meant to bring the floats to those who couldn't attend the Days of '47 Parade — later, it evolved to recognizing the floats and their builders for their hard work and artistic abilities.
"The details that these people have put, and the hard work that they have put into this float, you don't see them in the 15 seconds that the float goes by on the parade ground or on the TV camera," Colligan said. "This way you get to see up close and personal, see all the work that they've done, to read the stories of how their designs came to be. I mean, they have put in so many hours and worked so hard on these — it needs to be seen up close, to get the recognition that they deserve for all their hard work."
Other activities throughout the day involved performances from the Copper High School marching band ("The Marching Grizzlies"), two brass quintets, the Utah Pipe Band and dances by the Salt Lake Utah Tongan West Stake. The events' attendees could also get their faces painted and watch clowns make balloon animals for them.
"It's an air-conditioned parade," Colligan said, laughing. "It's just a party."
To best organize its floats participating in the parade, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assigned various stakes to build a float; the stakes could then choose the theming and artistic style of how to decorate them, Colligan said.
Businesses, groups and cities like Chick-Fil-A, Murray City Park, Tooele, Cottonwood Heights, Sandy and West Valley City also participated in the preview parade with floats of their own.
Each float has a unique perspective on the legacy of one of Utah's most celebrated holidays, Pioneer Day — some celebrating the building of the Salt Lake Temple, others showcasing the sacrifice of the church's missionaries, and another showing the different games pioneer children played.
"Just looking at the different stories makes people want to know what stories are in their past, and in their family's past — and the way that people end up working together brings true friendship for lifetimes. People that they've never met before all of a sudden become best friends," Colligan said. "And it doesn't have to be just the LDS community. People from all areas of the community help on these floats, so it brings a real community together."
In fact, one float done by the Independence Stake from Bluffdale showcases larger-than-life-sized styrofoam and papier-mache ancestors from several backgrounds, one person being Scottish, another Native American, and another African-American. The float also displays large, glittering mountains in front of the ancestors.
Holly Crabtree, one of the main contributors to the float, added that the designer had a dream of his ancestors helping him climb over the symbolically difficult mountains of his life.
She added that many of the depicted people on the float — which was designed with both the help of AI and the volunteers' crafting skills — come from differing cultures and countries to showcase the many types of ancestors and pioneers.
"We felt like — not everyone has pioneer ancestry that came across the plains, not everyone kind of connects with that, so we wanted to represent a broad range," Crabtree said. "We wanted to just have people feel like, when they look at it, that it's something that they can relate to because anybody has family history, everyone has ancestors and they come from all over."
The preview event itself has also benefited Crabtree, because as one of the main carvers and designers of the ancestors, she noted that others can get the chance to view some of the small details she and the other artists put into the float, such as some of the wired eyelashes glued to the painted eyes, or a foam grandparent's small, glittering ring.
And it's not just Crabtree who has felt a greater connection with her stake and her ancestors from building the float. Tohi Halaufia, the Salt Lake Utah Tongan West Stake's float chairwoman, noted how her float has brought an expanded awareness of how her culture combined powerfully with her ancestors and faith.
The group's float depicts an outrigger canoe, holding a papier-mache depiction of the Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple, with glittering flowers native to the island adorning the canoe. A large Bible and Book of Mormon poke out of the float's green ground.
Halaufia noted that the outrigger canoe is a special design because it was the boat that not only the Tongan people used, but it was the type of boat Latter-day Saint missionaries used to come to their island and "bring the message to us."
"It's been a tear-jerker for everybody that's involved in this, because they understand the sacrifice it was for the gospel to come, you know, and our faith blossomed," Halaufia added. "It's been a tear-jerker for a lot of people because it brings back sacrifices that their forefathers had made."
Colligan herself felt a connection to those in her past when she helped organize the widespread event. When her mother passed away, Colligan noted that she felt like she couldn't continue working on the preview party, adding that she was "quite certain I didn't want to do it anymore."
But within a few days, Colligan felt a special connection from her mother and other ancestors, giving her the message to continue organizing the event and pushing through difficulties, saying that she felt them tell her, "'You can do this, you're not alone. You have the stories of your relatives behind you.'"
"If they're behind me doing this, I can do anything," Colligan said.
And it's not just Colligan who has had unique experiences with helping host the event — Astle, who worked on the Sandy Crescent Stake float, added that putting so much sacrifice and commitment into the float helped her recognize the importance of the Pioneer Day holiday, especially in carrying Utah's legacy of sacrifice, hard work, and faith to her children.
"Why else would we spend you know, so much time and money and effort to remember these stories of the pioneers — when it's really to inspire the youth and the children to learn the story?" Astle said.
