Following the path paved by her late father, Audrey Carlson of Portland will proudly pilot the pace car for the Grand Floral Parade on June 7.

It’s a family tradition to be involved with the Grand Floral Parade, and driving the pace car will certainly be a sentimental time for the 20-year-old Carlson, a Portland State University student.

“It’s going to be so surreal,” she said. “I can only imagine my granddad and dad would be so proud and happy that I took this one on.”

Indeed, Carlson is a third generation volunteer — and a close family friend of Marilyn Clint, the longtime Rose Festival leader.

Her grandfather, Barry Carlson, designed a computer program years ago that helped track and pace the parade. His wife would be a data tracker His son and Audrey Carlson’s dad, Tary, drove the pace car for many years.

In later years, Barry Carlson used to sit in the command post with Clint, keeping in touch with the radio team on the street. In the late ’90s, he was named Rose Festival’s Volunteer of the Year. Even while battling Parkinson’s, Barry would attend the parade; his wife would be a data tracker.

Tary Carlson volunteered for the parade and drove the pace car, until passing away of cancer in 2018 at the age of 46.

In addition, Barry Carlson’s sister Terry Cleland runs the HAM radio team; in 2023, Cleland was named Rose Festival Volunteer of the Year.

Audrey Carlson first rode in the pace car with her dad in 2008 at age 4 with her granddad in the command center. Starting around 2018, as a teenager without a father, she helped keep data for each crossroads at intersections for the Grand Floral Parade.

It’s important to set pace and track the parade, what with (at least in the past) horses involved, walkers and marchers participating, the need to keep entries spaced out, television broadcast to coordinate and such.

Carlson is happy that the Grand Floral Parade returns to its downtown route, as when her father drove the pace car. She was a data tracker for the Starlight Parade last year, and the Grand Floral Parade follows the same route, so “I’m familiar with that.”

The pace car follows the leading police car in front of the parade.

Carlson wasn’t sure which car she would be driving in the parade. But, “fun fact, I’m actually driving dad’s car (as her everyday car), which he drove as the pace car in the parade, the Lexus ES350.”

She has many Rose Festival parades in the future.

“I have no plans on leaving Portland, so hope to bring whatever children I may have into this as well,” she said.