SEQUIM — If you could use a little cheering-up amid these dead-of-winter conditions, consider a youthful octet headed for the stage this weekend.
Eight girls will compete Saturday night for the title of Sequim Irrigation Festival queen in the annual royalty pageant at Sequim High School’s Performing Arts Center.
And while one will be chosen to stand high atop the “Sequim: A Magical Place” parade float, nobody will lose this contest. The other seven girls will become princesses of the festival, which celebrates Sequim’s farming-thanks-to-irrigation heritage.
They’re small-town teenagers with down-to-earth interests — plus high enthusiasm.
Contestants
For Ana Baylon, another lifelong lover of Sequim, the role of festival royalty is a way to learn about other communities while representing her own.
Baylon, 17, said she too has long imagined what it would be like to wave from the Irrigation Festival parade float.
For 16-year-old Ashleigh Clark, becoming Sequim royalty is a chance to “get out in the community and be more outgoing.”
She’s lived in Sequim for a year and a half, after moving six times. Among her addresses: Connecticut; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Astoria, Ore.; and Fairfield, Calif.
Her father, Sean Clark, is in the Coast Guard, and she too wants to join, to “get as much schooling as possible,” in order to become a pediatrician.
Kelsie Dotlich, 18, feels the same. Being a princess, or perhaps queen, of her town’s spring celebration “has always been a dream.”
After graduation this June she plans to attend Seattle’s Aveda Institute, study cosmetology and return to Sequim some day to open her own salon.
“I want to be an ambassador for Sequim,” said Elisha Elliott, also 17.
In a nod to this year’s festival theme, she added, “I want to get people to come here to see the magic of Sequim: the water, the mountains, and most of all, the people.”
Meghan Gammel looks forward to meeting other royalty in other towns’ parades. When asked what she wants to do after her graduation in 2010, this 17-year-old immediately replied that she wants to “work with troubled teens.”
Brianna Gilles, 16, sought to be part of the Irrigation Festival royalty to become a better communicator and leader.
“I want to get my master’s in political science and become a senator or an ambassador,” she added.
Whether she’s queen or a princess, Gilles will ride the Sequim Irrigation Festival parade float all over the Pacific Northwest, from the Tacoma Daffodil Parade in April to Seattle’s SeaFair in July — and most important, the Grand Parade down Washington Street in Sequim on May 9.
“I thought this would be a good opportunity to gain new friendships and learn more about Sequim,” said Holly Hudson, 17, another pageant participant.
Hudson hopes to attend Seattle Pacific University and try out for the Sea Gals — the Seattle Seahawks’ cheerleaders — but eventually make her home “somewhere like here.”
Lindsay Merrell, 17, plans to become a radiologist, after studying at the University of Washington in Seattle — and wants ultimately to work at Olympic Medical Center.
An accomplished singer and cheerleader, Merrell said she’s wanted to be festival royalty since she was “really little.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@ peninsuladailynews.com.
