Schools

Rose Parade to Invite Lassiter Friday

The president of the Tournament of Roses is spending two days with the Marching Trojan Band and its supporters.

It's official: The Lassiter High School Marching Trojan Band is going to the Tournament of Roses.

Sally Bixby, the president of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, is coming to Northeast Cobb at the end of the week to issue a formal invitation for the 250-member band to march in the 124th Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA, on New Year’s Day.

Lassiter received word of the invitation at the start of October, and band director Alfred Watkins . In all, about 400 people are likely to make the trip from Lassiter to Pasadena.

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Bixby will present the traditional Rose Parade flag to the band and issue the formal invitation Friday night during spring concert at the in Mableton, which starts at 7.

Bixby also will attend a picnic at Lassiter at 1:30 p.m. Saturday to sign the official Rose Parade theme posters for band members and will attend a reception in the Lassiter band building at 7 p.m. Saturday for parents, supporters and local officials.

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The Marching Trojan Band will be one of 22 marching bands in the 5-mile parade, whose theme will be “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

“The 2013 theme is about seizing the moment, throwing off the realistic cares of our daily lives and charging forth confidently,” Bixby said in a news release. “It is meant to encourage all to reach higher than the highest star and to create and explore a world that is full of possibility, rich with imagination and bursting with discovery.”

The 2013 grand marshal, Jane Goodall, inspired the theme, Bixby said in a statement.

This will be Lassiter’s fourth appearance in the Rose Parade, after 1988, 2001 and 2005. The band also marched in the .

Nearly 1 million people are expected to line the Rose Parade route, while more than 350 million people are expected to watch on television.

Watkins directs the Marching Trojan Band with the help of Laura Borchert and James Thompson Jr. Lassiter’s principal is Chris Richie.

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