For 12 years, Sue Sundberg led the decorating of the iconic ROSE that graces the exterior of the Norton Simon Museum, a worldwide symbol and backdrop that marks the start of the Rose Parade every New Year’s Day.
But for the first time in more than a decade, the 2025 parade’s rose will bloom without Sundberg watching proudly from the sidelines.
The longtime Rose Parade volunteer and former float supervisor at Fiesta Parade Floats died in her sleep on New Year’s Day 2024, just hours after returning home from the intense effort to complete last year’s floats and watching the parade. She was 72.
In tribute to her years of dedication, volunteer decorators inscribed water vials holding each flower used to create this year’s Norton Simon Museum “ROSE” with personal messages of love and remembrance.
“She left us so suddenly, and we all kind of had to laugh once the reality of it came in,” said Beverly Stansbury, former project manager at Fiesta Parade Floats and a close friend of Sundberg’s. “She died doing what she loved. She loved the Rose Parade almost more than anything in this world.”
Sundberg’s love affair with the Rose Parade began in the late 1980s when, as a Girl Scout troop leader, she chaperoned her troop to decorate floats. It was during this time that Stansbury first met Sundberg.
As Sundberg became more involved with Fiesta, the two grew close–becoming friends who traveled, partied and vacationed together. At the same time, Sundberg’s reputation as a hard worker with meticulous attention to detail quickly set her apart.
“She’d be one of the first ones in there, one of the last ones out every morning,” Stansbury said. “We had to be there at 7:30 a.m., she’d be there at 7. We usually worked until 10:30, 11 p.m. So, we’re talking (about) a long day…she would be dog tired like everybody else, but she was there and trying to make sure everybody was happy.”
Her dedication didn’t go unnoticed. Sundberg started out as a co-supervisor but quickly rose to oversee some of Fiesta’s “more prominent floats,” Stansbury said. Among them was the Rain Bird float, which consistently won the Sweepstake Award, the event’s top prize.
Sundberg’s success stemmed from her incredible attention to detail and her ability to work with and appreciate the volunteers who came in, Stansbury said.
“She had this small group of what we call groupies,” she recalled. “They followed her from year to year, regardless of what float she was assigned to.”
In 2011, Sundberg was chosen to lead the decorating of the Norton Simon Museum “ROSE”, an intricate display of thousands of fresh flowers and herbs applied to a steel frame. For 12 years, she worked with crafts people, floral artists and volunteers to ensure the ornament, which has become a familiar parade-route sight to television audiences worldwide, was flawless and ready to mark the parade’s start down Colorado Boulevard.
This year, many volunteers, including Sundberg’s daughter Misty Juarez and husband Armando Juarez, came to honor her memory by decorating “ROSE”. Among them were Sundberg’s former Girl Scouts, some bringing their own children to continue the tradition.
“They were her Girl Scouts girls going back to the 80s and 90s,” Stansbury said. “And she had this particular family that always came in every year just to decorate the Norton Simon ROSE. And sure enough, they were there all week decorating. And I mean, we’re talking now (about) second generation girls. She just brought everyone together that way.”
If Sundberg could’ve seen the water inscribed with messages in her honor, Stansbury said, she would’ve been overjoyed.
“ Oh my God, she would have been so happy. She knew she was loved— that’s one thing, we always express that to each other,” Stansbury said. “In fact, all of her best friends were there. We were all showing photos and memories, and so honored that we were doing her responsibility for her. We thought the ROSE turned out beautifully, but it always did because she did it. We were laughing and just having a wonderful time because we knew she was there with us.”