{"id":454227,"date":"2026-09-05T06:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T06:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454227\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T06:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T06:40:08","slug":"pasadena-tournament-of-roses-associations-former-president-dies-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454227\/","title":{"rendered":"Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association\u2019s former president dies \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gerald Freeny, who made history as the first Black president of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, has passed away, a spokesperson for the organization said Friday. He was 66.<\/p>\n<p>Freeny joined the association \u2014 which produces the annual Rose Parade on New Year&#8217;s Day \u2014 in 1988 and served for more than 30 years before becoming president in 2019. The theme of 2019&#8217;s parade was &#8220;The Melody of Life,&#8221; celebrating how music unites people through family, friendship, love and shared memories.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Anyone who knew Gerald knows that being President was only one part of his life,&#8221; 2027 Tournament of Roses president Terry Madigan wrote in an email to members on Friday. &#8220;He was kind, gracious, and always tried to bring people together. He showed this same spirit while serving many organizations in Pasadena and nearby communities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to Madigan, Freeny is survived by his wife and daughter.<\/p>\n<p>The cause of death was not announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gerald Freeny, who made history as the first Black president of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,1977],"class_list":["post-454227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-pasadena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}