Although the annual Strawberry Festival in June has been canceled, organizers of the annual Strawberry Festival queen program still plan to crown a new queen.
Jessica McClamroch, queen program director, announced Tuesday that the 15th annual Strawberry Festival Queen program, along with the 13th annual Junior Royalty program, will take place Saturday via Facebook. Winners will be announced that evening on the program’s Facebook page, “The Montgomery County Strawberry Festival Contest.”
The program has been redesigned to accommodate regulations due to COVID-19. The 10 junior royalty contestants each made a video telling the judges about themselves and why they want to be the festival prince or princess. The 23 queen contestants also created a video sharing information about themselves and will hold a FaceTime interview with each judge.
“I personally know how many new skills and personal growth contestants learn when participating in this program, and because of that, I had to redesign this program in order to accommodate regulations to still allow all contestants to particpate and be excited for something that was not going to get canceled,” McClamroch said. “This may look completely different than any other year, but after speaking with my committee and the contestants, this was the best decision.”
The program will award a queen, first runner-up, second runner-up and Miss Congeniality in hopes that the Strawberry Festival Board will be able to fulfill the board’s idea to have a smaller version of the festival at a later date in the year.
S. David Long, Strawberry Festival director, announced in late March the board’s decision to cancel this year’s three-day event, which is draws thousands of people to Lane Place. Long said there is strong support to possibly conduct a scaled down festival or similar event later in the year if the current situation subsides. Long said the board will continue to closely follow events and explore what and when something of this nature might take place.
McClamroch added the queen program thanks the following businesses for their sponsorship, PNC Bank, Perry Equipment, John’s Trophy’s & Awards and JNAvisuals LLC.
