2 Local Youths to Ride Floats in Rose Parade

Eric Yomantas looked up at the huge dinosaur covered with green leaves and limes Tuesday morning and smiled with satisfaction.

Then, the 8-year-old Thousand Oaks second-grader demonstrated the wave that he will use today as he rides under the dinosaur down Colorado Boulevard in this year’s Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.

Nearby, workers continued pasting grains and plugging flowers onto floats in the huge white tent at the Rose Bowl.

Just outside the Rosemont Pavilion, volunteers were pasting and plugging until the last minutes before the 3 p.m. float judging. In the pavilion’s massive doorway, Oxnard fourth-grader Melissa McClelland, 10, sat waiting, dressed in a maroon medieval gown.

The workers had finished the Camelot-themed float she will ride on this morning. But Melissa and the other children from Make-A-Wish Foundation had to wait to be seated on the float for judging, thanks to the light rain that had started moments before.

“Why now?” a float worker loudly complained, looking toward the sky.

Melissa, whose vision is impaired by a brain tumor, is riding the Auto Club of Southern California float that is dedicated to raising funds for Make-A-Wish. Eric is representing the Parent-Teacher Assn. on a float sponsored by Microsoft Corp.

Both children are understandably excited.

“They were flying off the walls,” Jerry McClelland said about daughter Melissa and her 12-year-old brother, Jason, who will be watching from the sidelines.

“Knowing Eric, he’s going to be going like this,” said his mom, Patti Yomantas, waving her hands above her head to demonstrate.

But are the kids nervous? Nah.

Melissa is a Rose Parade float veteran. She rode two years ago as a special treat arranged through one of her father’s co-workers. It was an informal arrangement not connected to Make-A-Wish, an organization that grants wishes for seriously ill children.

Not only does she know what to expect this time around, she’s feeling a lot better than she was in January 1995. Then she was undergoing chemotherapy for the brain tumor that sits on her optic nerves.

“It was real tiring,” Melissa said about that first ride. The tumor is now in remission.

Eric may be a novice to float riding, but he’s not new to crowds. Last spring, while still in first grade, he read a poem he wrote at the state PTA convention in Anaheim.

The poem, a reflection on the birth of his cousin, had won the state Reflection Award for literature for his age group. It later got an honorable mention in the national competition.

Award notwithstanding, Eric doesn’t see himself as a poet. Instead, he aspires to be a company president like his father, Gary Yomantas, who heads New Hampshire Ball Bearings Inc. in Chatsworth. Eric also enjoys karate and has his red belt.

His take on the float he’s riding?

“Neat,” he said.

‘It’s pretty,” Melissa said about her float. The first thing she thought when she saw it was, “It’s big.”

In spite of her impaired vision--she is totally blind in her left eye and only partially sighted in her right--Melissa remains active.

Neither Melissa nor Eric was looking forward to getting up early to be in their places on time. And Eric pointed out one other downside to two hours on a float.

“I can’t drink liquid for a long time [before], ‘cause there’s not a bathroom,” he said.

* PARADE ROUTE

More photos and coverage. B10