C’view senior named Queen Jubilee XXXVI

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

First Mari Young’s mouth dropped open. Then surprise gave way to joy as she realized she was now Queen Jubilee XXXVI. The Crestview senior earned her new title in competition with seven other girls during Friday night’s Peony Festival Pageant held at The Marsh Foundation Auditorium.

Young actually was a double winner on the night as she also was selected as the talent winner before being crowned the new queen by Queen Jubilee XXXV Ayla Eley. The wins also come with a total of $1,600 in scholarship money (click here for more photos).

Young said after the pageant that she had speculated what it might be like to be named the new Peony queen before the event got underway, adding that one of her friends asked her earlier in the day what she thought she would do if she really was named queen. “I said probably my jaw would just drop and I would just run up there and go ‘oh my gosh, oh my gosh’ and that’s pretty much what happened,” she said, adding, “I am extremely happy and I feel extremely honored to be a part of this tradition and get queen.”

She also had nice things to say about her fellow competitors. “This was a fantastic group of girls,” Young said. “I think everyone here has a great attitude and everyone was just so much fun to be around all the time.”

The effort needed to pull off the double victory wasn’t easy for Young, who missed the first night of rehearsals because she was at Disney World with the Crestview band and Knight-Vision show choir. “I was a little bit behind, a little bit frazzled,” she said, but still managed to ace her clogging routine to the song “Jai Ho” from the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

Another double winner was Abby Evans of Parkway High School, who was named both first runner-up and Miss Congeniality and earned a total of $1,050 in scholarship money.

Korey Boggs of Delphos Jefferson High School was named second runner-up and received $600 in scholarship grants (click here for sponsors and other festival notables).

The other five candidates were Renee Chen of Van Wert High School, Amelia Wiseman of Vantage Career Center, Hillary Ludwig of Lincolnview High School, Kaitlin Relyea of Paulding High School and Lauren Holtsberry of Wayne Trace High School.

The crowning of a new queen capped a night that included talent presentations by each of the eight girls, as well as promenading in evening gowns and answering questions posed by Susan Burchfield, who was emceeing her first Peony Pageant.

Judges for Friday’s pageant were Cindy Brandehoff, Ross Kinsey, Paula Schumm and Alex Yoder, while judges for the preliminary interviews and essays included Ed Rentz, Kelly Kill and Cheri Streicher.

Squiring the girls around and moving heavy items such as pianos were Calib Cunningham, Dylan Hartman and Nate Simson, while local CPA Rick Sealscott again performed the duties of pageant auditor — a post he has held for a number of years.

A more recent tradition has been the Little Flower Girls who hand flowers to the candidates — and usually end by upstaging the older girls. This year’s Little Flower Girls included Lexie Barnhart, daughter of Brent and Stacie Barnhart; Tyra McClain, daughter of Ty and JJ McClain; Sidney Davis, daughter of Scott and Amber Davis; Faith Zurcher, daughter of Luke and Charlotte Zurcher; Karli Moore, daughter of Jeff and Lyn Moore; Finley Foster, daughter of Shad and Kelly Foster; Addison Edwards, daughter of Doug and Nikki Edwards; and Kaitlyn Zeedyk, daughter of Mike and Michelle Zeedyk.

Crown bearer was Kaylee Mollenkopf, daughter of JR and Becki Mollekopf.

A lot of credit for the event’s success went to the Peony Pageant Committee, which includes first-year Director Kylie Mills, Becki Mollenkopf, Karen Pugh, and Kelly Walker.