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Gasparilla Bound

Tampa Tribune staff photo/Greg Fight.

Sasha Molnar, 16, tries on her head gear as Newsome High School students prepare for their appearance in the Gasparilla parades. The students will appear as moving sculptures in a "Mystical Seascape" theme.

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By LIZ BLEAU, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 26, 2008

Updated: 01/24/2008 05:33 pm

< href="http://snap.tbo.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=322446"Additional Photos

LITHIA - With just some paper, wire, fabric and paint, art students at Newsome High School created an elaborate underwater world that they will show off today as they march alongside the Krewe of the Unsinkable Molly Brown's float in Gasparilla's Parade of the Pirates.

Students have fabricated headdresses crafted to look like green blades of seaweed that curve and wind around bubbles and authentic-looking textured orange coral. A large papier-mâche turtle has a head that juts out and bobbles. A squid headpiece has tentacles that move and lighted ends.

Those and other underwater creatures will be complemented by lengths of flowing blue fabric that mimic the sea and shimmery, colorful windsocks made to look like fish swimming in the ocean.

The students created the headpieces, puppets and other accessories to concoct a mystical seascape to display as a moving sculpture beside the Molly Brown float, which depicts the doomed Titanic sinking into the ocean.

Amanda Rush, 17, a Newsome senior, helped make the windsocks and turtle. She had not worked with papier-mâche before.

"But I was surprised how it came out," she said. "They look really good."

Danielle Estes, 17, also helped fashion the windsocks and said she was looking forward to the parade. "I've never been in a big parade. It should be cool," she said.

Annabelle Simpson, 17, helped construct the seaweed and coral headdresses in Newsome's art room every day for the past several months.

"In the beginning, I was kind of worried," she said, "but it has really all come together well."

The Krewe of the Unsinkable Molly Brown and its charitable arm, the Molly Brown Foundation, are dedicated to promoting art education. MarineMax, a major supporter of the foundation, gave Newsome $5,000 for supplies. Bits 'N Pieces, a local puppet troupe sponsored by the Hillsborough County Arts Council, provided technical help creating the puppets and headpieces.

Nancy Peterson, a founder of the Molly Brown krewe, said the students and the underwater theme "add a whole other layer to our float. It's a way for us to have fun doing something different and helping promote the arts."

The project began with a small number of students in teacher Andi Tomassi's art class. With help from Tomassi and the Bits 'N Pieces staff, the class designed the headpieces and other sea creatures and props. Then Tomassi put out a call for student volunteers. She needed at least 50 students to work on the project and march in the main Gasparilla parade and the children's and lighted parades.

"I'm really pleased with how this project has turned out," Tomassi said. "When the kids started, they were very apprehensive because they had never built anything before, but as the pieces came together they began to feel better."

The students are especially proud of one of the last sculptures to be completed, a sea dragon that is 16 to 20 feet long and requires two students to wear the body and another to support the tail on a headpiece.

"These kids gave up their lunches and after-school time to do all this," she said. "Some of them have been very dedicated."

This will be the fifth Parade of the Pirates for the Molly Brown krewe but its first accompanied by high school students.

The Molly Brown float took the parade's top prize last year and in 2004. Krewe members dress in period costume, with many wearing formal evening dress similar to what Titanic passengers would have worn when the Titanic sank April 15, 1912.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Gasparilla's Parade of the Pirates

WHERE: Downtown Tampa, beginning at Bay to Bay Boulevard and Bayshore Boulevard. From there, the procession will head north along Bayshore Boulevard to the Platt Street bridge, turn east on Channelside Drive, north on Florida Avenue and east on Jackson Street. The parade ends at Jackson and Marion streets.

WHEN: 2 to 5 p.m. today

INFORMATON: http://gasparilla piratefest.com

LIGHTED PARADE

If you miss today's Gasparilla parade, the 2008 Krewe of the Knights of Sant' Yago Illuminated Knight Parade will begin at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 16 at Channelside and wind through Ybor City.

Reporter Liz Bleau can be reached at (813) 865-1557 or lbleau@tampatrib.com

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