CLOVIS, Calif. – The Clovis High School marching band will march in the 2027 Rose Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
It’s the first time the band gets to perform in the annual tradition since 1986.
The news was revealed during a ceremony Friday at the high school campus. Terry Madigan, Tournament of Roses president, recognized the band’s achievement after years of applying.
“Every time you've applied, you've gotten better and better and better, and it was a very easy decision this time,” Madigan said.
The Clovis High band includes nearly 250 students. They will each walk along the parade’s five-and-a-half-mile route on January 1, 2027.
Clovis High is only one of eight schools across the nation selected to participate.
Clovis High Principal Matt Lucas said the students have spent hundreds of hours preparing for their possible return to the parade, with support extending from their elementary school through their high school.
“It’s a giant family,” Lucas said. “They love each other. They put in hundreds of hours, thousands of hours. Whether you're here early in the morning or late in the evening. You're going to find the music team here working with students, and it shows a lot in their work because of them getting accepted into the Rose Parade.”
Noah Xiong, the band’s head drum major, said the opportunity feels surreal.
“I can't express enough how much this means to all of us,” Xiong said. “Like never in a million years would I imagine that we're going to be in the Rose Parade, and it's really awesome.”
Madigan, from the tournament, encouraged the students to take it all in as they march in front of hundreds of thousands of people, not including the millions who watch online each year.
To put it into perspective for them, he says last year on the TikTok livestream alone, the parade amassed over 5.5 million viewers.
The band’s celebration will continue the following day, when students will also march in a parade at Disneyland.
