EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — As Thanksgiving Day fast approaches, KTSM is taking you behind the scenes on what it takes to put together the incredible floats you see every year during the annual Glasheen, Valles & Inderman Injury Lawyers Sun Bowl Parade.
We are starting with the most iconic float that you will find during the parade, the turkey cornucopia.
Tony Valtier is a member of the board of directors for the Sun Bowl Association. He is one of the people in charge of making sure this turkey looks incredible.
“The turkey cornucopia float kicks off the Thanksgiving Day parade. A lot of hours went into it. We built this in 2018. It is sponsored by Glasheen, Valles & Inderman Injury Lawyers. And it’s always exciting to drive this down the parade route,” Valtier said.
This year’s theme is “Childhood Is Where Dreams Are Born,” and Valtier says the turkey is going to be an astronaut.
“So, as you could see last year from the turkey, we were honoring our heroes, past and present. So, the turkey got a makeover to look like a jet fighter,” he said. “This year, we’re going to fabricate a helmet on him. We may put some rockets at the back of his wings, but he will look like an astronaut,” Valtier said
The turkey float is made entirely of Styrofoam.
“It is all Styrofoam. We like to refer to this as movie magic, but we have a lathe machine that we retrofitted so we could fit huge chunks of Styrofoam three by three feet or by four feet. We turn them, we carve them. Each vegetable was done individually. Then we had an artist paint them,” Valtier explained.
The way this float is driven is also very interesting. A tomato helmet is a must when maneuvering this float.
“This is where we drive the turkey float. It has limited visibility, but we do have cameras set up on the inside so that we can see left and right, or while we’re taking the float downtown and staging it. So, it is fun because some of the kids see me as I’m driving by and they laugh and they point, but it’s a lot of fun just to have this helmet and to try to blend in with the rest of the float,” Valtier said.
Don’t forget, KTSM is your home for the holidays, and we are airing the parade live at 10 a.m. on Thursday, November 27. We will also have it up on KTSM+ so you can catch it on demand.
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