11/05/07 Getting Ready for the Parade

Getting Ready for the Parade. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Each year at Thanksgiving our family eagerly awaits the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It's as much of the holiday as the turkey on the table. And like everyone, we love the balloons. It takes quite a team of balloon handlers to wrangle those balloons down the parade route. Amy Morrison is a student at Washington State University and was chosen to help with the Healthy Mr. Potato Head balloon this year. MORRISON: The Healthy Mr. Potato Head balloon is put on by the United States Potato Board and each state that has an association gets to select somebody to send to the team to be a balloon handler. So our state chose me because I was a scholarship winner through the Washington State Potato Foundation. Morrison had to go through specialized training to handle the balloon. MORRISON: The training is pretty involved. It is put on by Macy's. They have this whole crew and workshop and they've done this for so long that it runs like clockwork but we spent an entire weekend in Newark, New Jersey and did training at a conference room just going over some basics of what's going to be happening and then the next day we went out to the Meadowbrook Fields where the New York Jets and Giants play. They had three balloons out there; we got to train on three different balloons out in the Giant parking lot. An interesting side note is that this is Amy's first time handling a balloon and it will be the last time for the Healthy Mr. Potato Head balloon. He's being retired after this year's parade. MORRISON: And he could possibly come back at some parade later on down the road but this will be his last time for a while at least so it's just really special. It's my first time and his last time so it's a really cool experience that's once in a lifetime that I'll never get to do again. Morrison is currently studying to be a high school agriculture education teacher. She grew up on a potato farm and is a walking public relations firm for the potato that has been seeing resurgence in popularity after the Adkins diet showed the spud in a bad light. MORRISON: Actually the potatoes are making a comeback. We have been working with the United States Potato Board and the Healthy Mr. Potato Head float just going out there and promoting the fact that potatoes are a healthy vegetable. They're a staple. Every Thanksgiving American's have over 34 million pounds of potatoes. It's something that everyone can enjoy. One potato has more vitamin C and potassium in it than a banana and it only has about 100 calories. So be sure and look for Amy below the Healthy Mr. Potato Head balloon at this years Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.