Osmo ambassador Elizabeth Holcomb gets front-row seat at Rose Parade

When Elizabeth Holcomb was in high school, she helped out with an important job on the Rose Parade: Decorating the floats for the Kiwanis Club.

Now, a first-grade teacher and Osmo/BYJUs Education All-Star, Holcomb attended the parade this year as a guest of Osmo and got some more priceless memories: She met parade Grand Marshall Levar Burton, attend the game and even meet the star of the popular reality show ‘The Bachelor.’

“I did the floats for three out of the four years in high school and that was also a really fun behind-the-scenes experience,” she said. “So it kind of felt like it was coming full circle.”

But for Elizabeth, nothing beat the feeling of the focus of the parade being on education and the spotlight that was put on teachers through the parade’s theme and the effort to spotlight educators like herself, especially after what everyone has gone through in the past two years.

The theme for this year’s parade was “Dream. Believe. Achieve.” and there was no better way to celebrate that than to spotlight educators like Elizabeth as Education All-Stars. The list of honored teachers from around the country were recognized by Levar Burton on his social media accounts and cheered at the parade. 

“It was an amazing feeling to be recognized in a positive life and have all of this positive attention on education. With the whole theme of the parade, it really felt like a tribute to education and educators across the nation,” she said.

“It just meant a lot feeling like the whole day was dedicated to that, just an acknowledgement of what the past couple of years have been like and all the hard work and dedication all teachers are putting in right now. It was great.”

For Elizabeth, who was able to attend the parade, her day started with a visit to the Tournament House, where she met LeVar Burton and members of his family who attended.

“A couple of his family members were retired teachers, so that was really neat to get to talk to them,” she said. 

Then, it was time to go to the parade: She walked to the route and the TV corner where she and her fiance snagged front-row seats right in front of the cameras shooting the parade for TV. After the parade she headed over to the game, where they were in a VIP tailgate tent.

“It was funny because at one point Tyler said to me ‘I don’t know who’s behind you but they’ve got to be famous because all of these girls keep going up to him to get a picture,’” she said. 

Elizabeth looked over her shoulder and saw the new star of ‘The Bachelor’ feet away. 

As a loyal watcher of the show, of course, she had to snag a photo with him too. (He was very nice, she said.)

Celebrity photo secured, they went to the game and despite being fans of neither Utah or Ohio State, Holcomb and her fiance opted to root for the Buckeyes. And while they’re not huge fans, they couldn’t have asked for a better outcome: The game was an instant classic, with the nailbiter going to Ohio State, who won by three.