SANDY, Utah — Heather Witkamp is an art teacher and floral designer, but she’s never before done anything quite like building a parade float.
There’s “no [Church] calling like it in the world,” she said, standing beside the Midvale Utah Union Park Stake float on Saturday, July 20, during the 2024 Float Preview Party held in anticipation of the 175th annual Days of ‘47 Parade.
The parade is part of Utah’s Pioneer Day, July 24, which celebrates the arrival of Brigham Young and Latter-day Saint pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley.
This year’s Float Preview Party was held at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy, Utah, on July 20 and 22. The preview allowed the public an up-close look at the floats before the July 24 parade.
Witkamp said she and her husband were called months ago to oversee their stake’s parade float. She estimated the float took around 1,400 hours to build, with the help of multiple volunteers. It boasts a large, glittery beehive, a variety of flowers and jumbo, intricately crafted stalks of wheat — all shaped from styrofoam.
It also features a lone woman pulling a handcart with an angel pushing from behind: homage to Witkamp’s ancestor, whose husband died while crossing the plains with the Martin Handcart Company.
Witkamp became emotional sharing a quote attributed to a member of the Martin Handcart Company: “I have gone on to that sand, and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.”
“Help is there for us, even if we can’t see it,” Witkamp said, adding that the message of the float is “to go out and be an angel. There are angels among us, so be the angel. Go and help someone.”
Honoring pioneers
The Float Preview Party began in 1994 with Tom and Cheri Colligan, whose bishop first pitched the idea to parade organizers.
Thirty years later, they’re still serving as the Float Preview Party coordinators, letting people enjoy the floats away from the heat and crowds.
”It gets better and better each year, it seems,” Tom Colligan said. “The caliber of the floats this year is over the top. The crowds have grown every year.”
Jodene Smith, one of the 2024 Preview Chairs, started working with the Float Preview Party in 1996. She said both the party and the Days of ‘47 Parade “helps people remember the heritage that we love.”
Smith said 20 stakes contributed floats to this year’s parade. Other parade floats were provided by local governments, civic organizations, businesses and religious organizations, she continued.
Loe Pierce from the Church Communication Department said stakes located between Bountiful and Draper are chosen once every seven to eight years to provide a float.
The floats are then designed by a committee of local community members, Tom Colligan said.
Kim Mortensen, who helped build the West Jordan Utah Sycamores Stake float, said the project has been a deeply spiritual experience that brought stake members together.
The float’s theme is “Pioneer heart-shaped Utah” and takes inspiration from the Kennecott Copper Mine. Badgers dressed in mining gear scurry about the display, while “pictographs” of various Utah symbols — dinosaur fossils, a pioneer wagon, the BYU “Y” and the University of Utah “U” — decorate the inside of the mine.
Mortensen is particularly proud of the dump truck — the stake’s youth wrote out their testimonies and then folded them into origami rocks to fill the truck, she said.
The stake Primary children also got involved, filling jars with donated pennies that will in turn be donated to Primary Children’s Hospital.
“There are so many hands that have touched this float,” Mortensen said, adding that building the float keeps the pioneer spirit alive. “Our labor of love is in honor of their labor of love for us.”
Cheryl Toone, who helped build the Bountiful Utah Heights Stake float, echoed Mortensen’s thoughts honoring pioneers. Especially as the world changes, it’s important to remember that “they’re the ones that settled this area for us, and without them, it wouldn’t be what it is.”
The Bountiful Utah Heights Stake float features a globe surrounded by temples, one from each continent, Toone said. She and other float builders wanted to acknowledge that while there weren’t any temples when pioneers first arrived in Utah, nearly 200 dedicated houses of the Lord now dot the earth, and the pioneers’ sacrifices helped make that possible.
The float also has a large QR code which, when scanned, takes the user to a timeline video showing the number of temples around from 1847 to today.
“It gives you chills when you watch it. ... at the end, [the temples] just become a light,” Toone said.
