90th Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival by Winchester Star

Bloom Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival

the

Pageant of Springtime For about 30 years, the event attracted thousands to Handley High School to witness spectacular displays of youth, music, pomp and revelry. Full Story E3

THEN AND NOW

The Winchester Star Saturday April 29, 2017

E THE ATHLETES

Festival continues to change with times

JEFF TAYLOR/The Winchester Star

By ROBYN TAYLOR The Winchester Star

Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival Sports Marshal Cal Ripken Jr. waves to the crowd during the Grand Feature Parade in 2016.

WINCHESTER — If someone from the 1920s who attended the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival during its early days were able to time travel to 2017, they would still recognize what was going on, says festival Executive Director John Rosenberger. “People still hang the pink-and-green bunting, we still crown a queen,” said Rosenberger, whose history with the festival goes back to 1956 when he was in the queen’s court. “There are still the little food stands on the street corners, the marching bands still play John Philip Sousa and there are still fireworks.” Yes, but the crowds and commotion might be a shock to their 1920s’ sensibilities. What began as one-day celebration in 1924 of the area’s abundant apple orchards has grown into 10 days of parties, dances, lunches, parades and celebrity sightings. As the festival celebrates its 90th year, it just keeps getting bigger. It takes five paid staff and more than 2,000 volunteers working in an elaborate committee system to plan and execute an award-winning festival that can attract 250,000 people — with an estimated 150,000 spectators for the Grand Feature Parade alone. “We’re trying to create something big,” Rosenberger said. “And it is really big.” In fact, the festival is probably “too big for the size of Winchester,” Rosenberger said. “We’ve been clogging up the streets since the 1920s.”

‘Biggest and best’ in sports By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Sports might not have played much of a role in the first 40 years of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival’s history, but in 2017 it’s impossible to imagine what the event would be like without athletic events or sports guests. Just ask the 1,200 people who run each year in the 10K race, the 1,000 children who participate in the Kids Bloomin’ Mile, or the more than 200 people who play in the golf and tennis tournaments, which are open only to amateurs this year. Just ask the people who started lining up at 6:15 a.m. — nearly four hours before the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival Souvenirs and Ticket Store opened — on April 7, one day after it was announced that former Pittsburgh Steelers great Hines Ward would be this year’s Sports Marshal and speak at the Partlow Insurance Sports Breakfast on May 6. Or ask the people who started buying Sports Breakfast tickets last November without knowing which celebrities would show up in 2017, because you can always count on some famous athlete showing up in Winchester in the spring.

New events required In 1924, 1,200 civic leaders from the Shenandoah Valley met in Harrisonburg to brainstorm ways to promote the valley, according to David Brill’s “The Trail of Pink Petals,” the official history of the festival. The delegation from Winchester agreed to stage a festival celebrating the apple industry, and in a mere 11 days an advisory board not only planned the events but found the time to hand-deliver an invitation to President Calvin Coolidge (who sent his regrets). On May 3, 1924, the first festival featured a May Day program at the fairgrounds off Fairmont Avenue followed by a 45-minute parade through the streets of Winchester in front of 30,000 spectators. After the parade, the first coronation was held at Handley High School where Elizabeth Steck, of Winchester, was crowned

Clockwise from top: Grand Feature Parade spectators 2012; Young at Heart Luncheon 2013; Sherando Band in Grand Feature Parade 2015; Kids Bloomin’ Mile 2012; apple pie baking contest 2013; Crowning of queen Jasmyn “Jazz” Dorsett 2012.

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See Sports, Page E5

THE MAIN EVENT

Lions Club takes pride in parade By JOSH JANNEY The Winchester Star

Elizabeth Steck, of Winchester, sits in the midst of her court at the first coronation on May 3, 1924, in front of Handley High School. Twins Ethyl A. Cooper and Retha C. Cooper were the Little Maids on either side of the queen. Pages dressed in blue caps and ties were Harry F. Byrd Jr. (left) and J. Kenneth Robinson (right). The Crown Bearer was Lewis M. Hyde Jr. (holding pillow). Court Jester was James Ross Du Shane (standing in back on right). Minister of the crown was Richard H.G. Gray (standing in back left).

WINCHESTER STAR PHOTO CREDITS: SPECTATORS, SHERANDO, DANCE, MILE (JEFF TAYLOR); BAKING, QUEEN (GINGER PERRY)

WINCHESTER — Every year, thousands of people crowd the streets of downtown Winchester on Saturday afternoon to witness the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival’s Grand Feature Parade. While many may enjoy the spectacle, they may not be aware of the amount of preparation needed to put the parade together. For the 76th year, members of the Winchester Host Lions Club will coordinate the event, which steps off at 1:30 p.m. May 6. The parade route winds through the streets of downtown Winchester and ends shortly after the grandstand near Handley High School. Planning for the parade begins in the early fall, according to Chris Martin, who is in charge of the music-related aspects. Around Labor Day, a committee comprised of eight volunteers reviews videotapes of the previous parades, and then assesses what worked and what may need to be changed. Although the

See Parade, Page E2

THE APPLES

Don’t forget real reason for the celebration By CYNTHIA CATHER BURTON The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — With all the parades and parties, it’s easy to forget the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival began in 1924 as a salute to the community’s apple industry. Apples were once so plentiful in the Winchester area that it called itself the “Apple Capital of the World.” It no longer makes that claim, but the northern Shenandoah Valley is the

undisputed apple capital of Virginia, buoyed by rich soil and a suitable climate. Virginia ranks sixth in the nation in apple production, yielding about 5 million bushels a year, according to the Virginia Apple Board. About a third of those apples are harvested here. Roughly 70 percent of the state’s apples are sent to processing facilities to make applesauce, apple juice, apple

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INSIDE

THE BUSINESS OF THE BLOOM

4 THE TIMELINE 6-8 QUEENS A photo of every

Queen Shenandoah

GRAND MARSHALS

Photos of Grand Marshals through the GINGER PERRY/The Winchester Star years. A bee stops off at an apple blossom at an orchard in Frederick County. The northern Shenandoah Valley is the undisputed apple capital of Virginia, buoyed by rich soil and a suitable climate.

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THE WINCHESTER STAR

90th Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival x April 28 - May 7, 2017

THE STAFF

THE PAGEANT

Putting on festival a financial juggling act

‘An impossible act to follow’

By ONOFRIO CASTIGLIA

City spends thousands each year

The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Putting on the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is no easy task, and no cheap proposition. The festival is put on by Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival Inc. — headquartered at 135 N. Cameron St. Although the festival won’t give specific financial figures, Executive Director John Rosenberger said the last eight festivals— which have required more than 2,000 volunteers and five paid staff members — have been a financial challenge. It is the goal of each festival to break even financially, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. “‘Get Bloomed’ was about the last one that was easy,” Rosenberger said, referring to the theme of the 2008 festival. “[But] 2009 ... boy,” Rosenberger said. “Everyone was just so hunkered down ... unnecessary expenditures just didn’t seem to be on anyone’s mind.” That slump continued for the better part of a decade. It was a stark difference from the 1990s through early 2000s when “things were cruising.” Rosenberger said the festival is now “way more expensive than it used to be,” as fewer free services are received from the community than before and permitting is more difficult. The festival organizers of the 1980s “wouldn’t even recognize what we go through now” to organize the events. Also, in recent years, people’s attention has been getting harder to capture. In the early days of the festival, the Grand Feature Parade might be “the biggest, loudest” thing a person saw in a year, if not their lifetime, Rosenberger said. Today, everyone has been to a theme park. And because of the appeal of home entertainment, people are less willing to brave even mildly uncomfortable weather. “People are way more sensitive to weather than they used to be,” Rosenberger said, recalling old photographs of large crowds at the parades despite pouring rain. Today, two bad weather years in a row could be “crippling.” These and other factors have made putting on the festival an increasingly difficult task. Rosenberger said there’s never a question of whether the festival would be put on.

Parade

BY ONOFRIO CASTIGLIA The Winchester Star

JEFF TAYLOR/The Winchester Star

Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival programs decorate the office of John Rosenberger, who has been the festival’s executive director since the late 1990s.

LEFT: Office associates Jennifer Gaylor and Anne Marie Utz (seated) review ticket purchases. ABOVE: Donna Saville is the festival’s office manager. “We knew we’d have a festival.” But from 2009 to today, money was trimmed for events “on which there is no direct return,” such as the Friday night fireworks, the celebrities and professional parade bands. “Those are all gifts to the community ... the money just wasn’t there.” The festival does a self-audit each year in September before budget meetings in October. The budget meetings determine the budget for more than 40 events, each of which has a chairperson or co-chairpersons.

Rosenberger said the co-chairpersons request money for their events, but don’t always get what they ask for. “Some years they just hack away [at the budget].” In recent years, the festival has had to cut back on things like golf carts for volunteer staff, radios, and maybe some events went without things like fresh flowers on the table. Despite the financial decline, the festival still expanded to two weeks with many new events. The festival expanded, Rosenberger said, “but not in a dollars and cents way.”

WINCHESTER — The city’s support is critical to the festival’s success. According to figures provided by city government, Winchester spent about $139,000 on the 2016 festival. In fiscal year 2015, city expenses related to the festival were $136,786, up from $123,589 in FY14, according to city figures. A departmental breakdown for 2016 states that police expenses totaled about $65,000, the city’s most costly line item. According to previous statements made by City Manager Eden Freeman, the festival paid the city about $6,300 for police overtime for the 2016 festival. Public works expenses came in at about $44,700. The city’s Sheriff’s Office, which provided security during the festival, and emergency communications account for about another $11,900 combined. Fire and rescue services ran about $11,300. The rest of the city’s expenses came from other departments, including emergency medical services, animal control and social services. The city does not receive a direct financial contribution from the festival, but it does reap sales and meals tax revenues generated at city businesses. “[W]e do not have a way to measure the direct impact of the [Apple Blossom Festival] on local revenues,” said City Communications Manager Amy Simmons said in an email. But the festival is believed to raise the city’s profile as “... heightened awareness encourages visitors to visit the area at a later time or to come back after they’ve ‘discovered’ the Winchester area during the festival.”

from Page E1 parade development committee sends out applications to parade units in the fall, most groups don’t really consider the parade until after the holiday season. “People don’t commit to things as early as they used to,” said Apple Blossom Festival Executive Director John Rosenberger. “It really doesn’t do us good to send applications out to prior participants until after the holidays are over, because they are not going to answer.” As a result, Rosenberger said the committee starts mailing notices about the parade again in January. Rosenberger said each year there are about 180 parade units — 45 floats, 45 bands or musical units, 45 special units and 45 miscellaneous units. Special units can range from clown troupes to equestrian units to acrobats, while the miscellaneous units feature anything that doesn’t fit into the other categories, including official cars and the color guard. Not every group or individual that wants to participate in the event makes the cut. Rosenberger said all parade entries are juried and must bring entertainment value to the table. “We are constantly approached by groups who

Photo courtesy of Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at Handley Library

A Lions Club parade float in the 1920s. just want to march in the parade for recognition, and if they don’t have intrinsic entertainment value, we don’t accept them,” he said. “So, typically, it would require even more than costumes. It would require possibly interaction. The clown troupes, they are usually doing balloon things as they go and are handing them to kids in the crowd. There’s usually a group that passes out American flags to all of the kids in the crowd. It needs to have entertainment value.” He said there are about three pages of criteria for new floats, and that parade applicants are required to send sketches, drawings and pictures of what they intend to put in the parade. The Grand Feature Parade does not allow “simply dec-

orated trailers,” Rosenberger said. “Typically, we want a float to be a float,” he said. “We want it to be a separate wagon. We want it completely decorated down to the street. We don’t want to see the wheels or the tires.” Recruiting bands to join the parade has become more challenging over the years, according to Rosenberger. In the 1980s, Rosenberger said 60 or 70 high schools would volunteer, and the parade development committee could review them and pick which ones they wanted. Now, he

said the committee hopes to get 30 bands. Decades ago, he said, end-of-the year events for high school — such as prom, graduation and exams — did not occur until after the first of June leaving May open for events. “I think people my age have been shocked the last 20 years to see all of that stuff moved back,” he said. “... And now, Apple Blossom, particularly the parades, tends to fall at a time when schools are doing so much end-of-the-year type of stuff. It’s not as convenient as it was a generation ago. It’s become more inconvenient for the schools. Everything is an expense.” Martin said all of the high school bands from the City of Winchester and Frederick, Clarke and Warren counties will participate in the parade, as they have done in years past. “The local high school and middle school band participation is critical because those folks are in many ways the host schools for those who come from out of town,” Martin said. Rosenberger said he “wouldn’t have any idea” as to how much the over-

all parade costs, since the costs are divided among the various aspects of the parade, including parade marketing, security with the Winchester police, hired security, toilet expenses, seating and parade support. “I never even thought about pulling the numbers from all of those departments,” he said. Martin said about $15,000 to $20,000 is spent on the professional music portion of the parade alone. Rosenberger said there

are 30 to 40 volunteers who help manage the parade, but several hundred volunteers help out in some capacity including parade support, parade development, parade seating, parade production and parade TV. “It takes a lot of different folks with a lot of different focuses to come together to actually create this production that we call the ‘Grand Feature Parade,’” Martin said.

Pageant’s end was ‘traumatic and painful’ By REBECCA LAYNE The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival Executive Director John Rosenberger remembers the pall that hung over the city when the Pageant of Springtime ended. “It was traumatic and painful,” said the 67-yearold from his office on Cameron Street. “Some people were just sad when it ended. Some people were just hurt.” For about 30 years, the event had attracted thousands to Handley High School to witness the spectacular display of youth, music, pomp and revelry that overtook the steps and esplanade of the school. The original pageant ended in 1959, while a watered-down substitute limped along for another decade or so. After its demise, Rosenberger heard the same lamentation over and over again: Apple Blossom hasn’t been the same since the pageant. Is there any way to re-create it? The answer was always a dispirited no. “It was an impossible act to follow,” he said. “They tried.”

‘It was just magical looking’ Winchester Public Schools Superintendent Garland R. Quarles wrote and directed the first pageant in 1931, according to “The Trail of Pink Petals” by local author David Lee Brill. With the exception of the war years, Quarles wrote, produced and nar-

Photo courtesy of Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at Handley Library

Participants wait their turn to perform during a pageant in the late 1920s. Spectators stand in the background.

Putting it all together

GINGER PERRY/The Winchester Star

Carolyn Griffin looks over old Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival programs. Some of the programs contained the script for the festival pageant that used to be held in front of Handley High School. size of the crowd,” he said. rated the event until 1961 “I was impressed [as a kid] and was considered its keythat we could put on somestone. The pageant was held on thing in Winchester that would attract so many peothe steps of Handley High School (called Handley ple. People would come in School at the time) on the by the busloads.” Thursday after the queen’s The pageant had a simicoronation and on Friday lar script each year. From after the knighting of the an “orchestra pit” hidden by grand marshal and before trees cut for the occasion, the Grand Feature Parade. Quarles narrated over a There was also a full dress loudspeaker, and the school rehearsal on Wednesday band provided music. that many locals came to A pit chorus of the best watch. Overall, about 5,000 female singers also providto 10,000 people filled the ed songs. Handley Bowl, according to There were between four and six numbers in the Rosenberger, creating a sea of people as far as the eye pageant lasting between 15 and 20 minutes each. Durcould see. “I was impressed by the ing one number, students

Garland Quarles dressed in white, gray or black crawled over the steps to represent winter before retreating to make way for gold-costumed clad girls dancing with gold beachballs to represent the arrival of springtime. There was also an apple blossom wedding dance with a bride and groom, along with dancing tulips and pansies and a pink and green ballet. During some years, young girls in pink costumes crawled out of large apple blossoms that were pushed onto the esplanade. Some years included Civil War skirmishes, pioneers in a Conestoga wagon, patriotic banners and a red, white and blue-themed production. “It was just wonderful,” said 76-year-old Carolyn Griffin, a school student at the time. “Anyone could do it if you had two feet, even if you had two left feet,” she said. “It wasn’t hard.” Rosenberger recalls a gasp in the crowd each year when the female dancers, wearing dresses with a pink front and a green back, rotated and twirled among each other on the esplanade. “It was just magical looking,” he said.

About 1,500 students from third to 12th grade participated from the Winchester schools — John Kerr, Quarles, Virginia Avenue and Handley, which held grades 4th through 12th at the time. Participation was mandatory, Griffin remembers. “You had to have a doctor’s orders and be on crutches to not be in it,” she said. Despite this, there was very little pushback from the students. “It was something the school system asked you to do,” Griffin said. “It was a different time and different day. It was just understood you were going to do it. I never saw anyone pitch a fit. You did it. The end.” To practice for the big event, students were called out of school for two days a week for about four to six weeks, according to Rosenberger. This was part of the excitement leading up to the big day. Tom Scully, 73, remembers playing mice and a cat during his years in the pageant. He called the event a massive undertaking. “We’d look forward to it with a great deal of anticipation,” he said. “Now remember, we got out of class, but you were very proud of the performance. It really was fun to be in the festival and to be part of the big spectacle.” Female students created the pageant’s outfits — often made of crepe paper — in sewing and art classes during the school year, while dance moves were choreographed and taught by gym teachers in phys ed classes as early as the February before the event. The pageant was such a magical affair that some don’t remember anything

ever going wrong. Griffin said it was rare that anyone dropped a golden ball during the ball dance. Susie Iden, a member of the festival publicity and promotion committee who participated in the pageant as a young girl, doesn’t remember it ever raining. “In my mind, I don’t remember bad weather,” she said. “I only have good memories,” she added. “I think we worked on it so hard. I don’t remember anyone taking a wrong step.”

The end of an era Around 1960, the Virginia Department of Education stepped in and said that the children in Winchester were missing too much school while rehearsing for the pageant. It was at that time that people knew the pageant was officially over, according to Griffin. In 1961, Quarles did his last show. Unable to pull thousands of students out of class, he was hamstrung. “We struggled with it after Quarles retired,” Rosenberger said. “He was definitely the mover behind it. It just didn’t work without him there.” After Quarles stepped down, there were attempts to keep the show going with paid acts, dance troupes and students outside the division, but nothing seemed to work. The crowd dwindled to a few hundred, and even the weather refused to cooperate. “Between ‘68-74, every year was gray, dreary, drizzly weather,” Rosenberger said. “We had an awful run of it.” Scully remembers being upset when the pageant ended. “We were sad,” he said. “I guess maybe the time had come.” Griffin, who has worked with the festival since the mid-60s, recalls people asking over the years if the show could go on one more time, perhaps for the 50th anniversary, and then the 75th. But nothing happened, and now there’s little hope it ever will. Along with budget constraints, it would be impossible, Rosenberger said, to get a thousand or so kids to find time to practice for the event after school. Time, according to Griffin, has moved on. “I think it’s over,” she said. “And Lord knows we tried. Everything we tried didn’t measure up.”

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THE WINCHESTER STAR

90th Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival x April 28 - May 7, 2017

Sports

THE TIMELINE

ith the exception for four years during World War II the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival has been held each spring since 1924. Over the years it has grown from a small-town event to an award-winning festival that attracts people from hundreds of miles.

2000: Prayer Brunch added. 2002: 75th anniversary was celebrated with the return of a number of previous queens and maids of honor. Festival board of directors commissions local author David Lee Brill to write an official history of the festival, “The Trail of Pink Petals.”

1937: Queen Gretchen Biglow Thomson of New Orleans meets her future husband Harry F. Byrd Jr. Once she marries and settles in Winchester, she hosts 20 queens over the years.

1925: Theme was Native Americans and Quakers living in peace and harmony. Hundreds of schoolchildren wearing costumes from Winchester and surrounding counties marched in the parade and participated in a May Day pole dance with pink, green and white streamers. Events: barbecue dinner at the fairgrounds and an operetta at Handley High School.

1938: Grand Feature Parade gets its first grand marshal: Maj. Lewis M. Allen. Tom Baldridge appointed director general of the festival.

2004 : Kids Bloomin’ Mile added. 2005: Commonwealth Men’s Luncheon added.

SCOTT MASON/The Winchester Star

The sirens returned to the Firefighters’ Parade in 2011 after being banned for 25 years. were changed from Thursday through Saturday to Friday through Sunday.

1940: Dresses for the festival took their fashion cues from the movie “Gone with the Wind” with full crinoline skirts and large straw hat.

1929: On April 18, the first Torch Light and Mummers’ Parade was held with each participating firefighter carrying a flaming torch to illuminate the latest in firefighting equipment. In 1950, the parade was called the Firemens Parade and in 1981 the name was changed to Firefighters Parade.

1975: President Gerald R. Ford crowns his daughter, Susan, as Queen Shenandoah XLVIII and Sunday in the Park (now named Weekend in the Park) is introduced.

1942-1945: Festival activities suspended for World War II. 1946: Festival returns with a salute to military heroes that includes a fourhour long Victory Parade. 1948: Bing Crosby is Grand Marshal, the first in a long line of celebrity guests to headline the festival including Bob Hope (1949 and 1975), Arthur Godfrey (1953), Ed Sullivan (1954), James Cagney (1957), Lucille Ball (1964), Billy Graham (1972), and Dan Aykroyd (1999 and 2002).

1 9 3 1 : A delegation from Winchester travels to Winchester, England to ask that city’s mayor to find a queen. Patricia Darce Morton crowned queen. 1 9 3 2 : The Queen’s crown can’t be found just days before the coronation. Investigation into missing tiara reveals that Manas-

Festival

1 9 9 5 : Pro-Am Golf Tournament added.

sas Dairy Festival had borrowed the crown for its queen and had failed to return it.

1 9 2 4 : An estimated 30,000 people attend the first parade that lasted 45 minutes. Elizabeth Steck of Winchester crowned first queen at Handley High School with a headpiece made of real flowers. The celebration ended with fireworks.

1949: Festival televised

SCOTT MASON/The Winchester Star

Elephants from the Clyde Beatty Cole Brothers Circus walk in the Grand Feature Parade. The circus is no longer part of the festival because of animal rights issues. for first time by WMAL, Channel 7 in Washington, D.C. 1964: President Lyndon Johnson attends coronation of his daughter Luci, who reigned as Queen Shenandoah XXXVII.

1 9 6 5 : Sports celebrities invited to serve as Sports Marshals. Redskins great Sammy Baugh is the first followed by such athletes as Larry Brown and Joe Theisman (1975), Greg Louganis (1987), Cal Ripken Jr. (2016). 1971: The festival days

1977: Festival’s golden anniversary was celebrated with return visits by many former queens, a gold anniversary coin and a special song, called “Winchester in Apple Blossom Time,” written by Blossom Dearie and Walter W. Birchett. 1982: First Apple Blossom 10K held. 1983: The Miss Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival added as a pre-festival event. 1990: Bluegrass Festival added.

Queen Shenandoah I. The event was such a success that the festival tradition continued, interrupted only during the four years of World War II. Some events, such as the Grand Feature Parade and the Firefighters Parade, will always be a part of the festival, Rosenberger said. “One parade is not a good enough reason to shut the whole town down and set up chairs,” he said. A queen and her court will also be a part of the festival because “the fantasy of royalty has to be there,” he said. But coming up with new events is required. “I’ve been amazed at the shorter and shorter life span of some these events,” Rosenberger said. “That’s one of the toughest things to have to deal with.” In 2004, tickets to the inaugural Jimmy Buffetthemed beach party sold out so quickly Rosenberger was afraid people thought the “Margaritaville” singer was actually going to perform. The party was popular for seven or eight years and then one year it didn’t sell out. When an event can accommodate 1,350 people and only 500 people buy tickets, it’s time to think of something new. Long ago, life didn’t change so rapidly, he said. “Once you had something that worked you could do it for decades,” he said. “But now, it’s like people think, ‘I went two years to that. I want you to invent something new.’ ” New events this year are a tennis tournament, a food and wine event and a Ladies Commonwealth luncheon. The once-popular Disco Dance is out and in its place is A Night in Havana, a dance created in part to reach out to the growing Hispanic community.

Famous people welcome here The first festivals did not have celebrities, but now people eagerly await the announcement of which Hollywood stars or sports greats will ride in one or both of the parades. Tom Baldridge, appointed director general of the festival in 1938, was instrumental in first booking celebrities. Baldridge worked in publicity at MGM, promoting the careers of young actors. Through that job he

2007: Fireworks display canceled and coronation of queen held at Victory Church on Middle Road because of renovation work on Handley High School. 2009: Pumps and Pearls event added. 2011: After a 25-year absence, sirens were allowed during the Firefighters’ Parade. Fire trucks in a special section at the end of the parade are still allowed to blast their sirens. 2012: The Clyde BeattyCole Bros. circus no longer part of the festival because of animal rights issues. 2014: Apple Blossom’s Got Talent event added. 2017: A tennis tournament, a wine and food experience, the Ladies Commonwealth luncheon and A Night in Havana dance are added. — Compiled from “Trail of Pink Petals,” the Apple Blossom Festival website and The Winchester Star archives.

from Page E1

GINGER PERRY/The Winchester Star

Photo courtesy of Stewart J. Bell Archives at Handley Library

Grand Marshal George Hamilton works on his tan as he rides in the 2006 Grand Feature Parade.

Grand Marshal Bob Hope takes a bite of an apple offered by Queen Margaret Thors during the 1949 coronation.

was able to schedule celebrities to appear at the early festivals. Harry F. Byrd Jr., who served as a state senator and then as a U.S. senator, also used his connections to bring in notables. In 1938, Bing Crosby appeared as Grand Marshal of the Grand Feature Parade, the first in a long line of high-profile celebrities to visit. The lengthy Grand Marshal roster includes Bob Hope (who liked it so much he came twice), Ed Sullivan, Mary Tyler Moore and Debbie Reynolds. The festival even welcomed two sitting presidents. Lyndon Johnson came to Winchester for the coronation of his daughter Luci in 1964, which is known as the year of Lucys since actress Lucille Ball served as Grand Marshal. And President Gerald Ford rode in an open convertible in 1975 when he was here for the coronation of his daughter Susan.

actor Erik Estrada (Grand Marshal 2009), singer Lee Greenwood (Firefighters Marshal 2015) and actor George Hamilton (Grand Marshal 2006) embrace the spirit of the festival. Estrada enjoyed showing off his hot-pink socks, and Greenwood spontaneously broke into song a couple of times. Hamilton was a particularly great Grand Marshal, Rosenberger said. The perpetually tan actor arrived on a Thursday night straight from a jaunt in the Caribbean. Festival organizers weren’t expecting him to attend any functions that night but he insisted he was ready to go. A festival volunteer took off the pink tie he was wearing so Hamilton would have something suitable to wear to the Queen’s Dinner and away they went. “Those are the ones you want,” he said. Even when the celebrity doesn’t grasp the magnificence of the festival — we’re

The ones you want After Baldridge retired, the festival organizers tried to get celebrities by seeking help from friends who might know someone famous willing to come to Winchester for the cost of airfare and a hotel room. Those days are gone. “We have given up trying to get someone for nothing or next to nothing.” Rosenberger said. And finding celebrities willing to ride in a parade isn’t that tough, he said. There are agencies that handle famous people willing to make personal appearances — for a price. Agents know who is willing to ride in a parade for a two-hour appearance for $65,000. “If it’s someone that everyone has heard of, it’s going to be more like $100,000,” Rosenberger said. “But, of course, we’re trying to get them to even come and spend the night here.” Some celebrities such as

looking at you Val Kilmer (Grand Marshal 2010) — a big name still attracts spectators to the Grand Feature Parade. On a Saturday afternoon when the weather is nice and the celebrities are popular, “I don’t have any trouble believing we have 150,000 people at the parade,” Rosenberger said. What’s harder to book is a queen, a young woman willing to give up days of her time in the midst of exams or preparing for prom. “The best way to get a queen is to find a girl who has already done it and talked it up,” he said.

A national event It would seem easier just to select a local girl as a queen and be done with it. But “being a local event is not what we’re trying to do,” Rosenberger said. The festival draws visitors from hundreds of miles away. People from central Penn-

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sylvania and southern New York state, in particular, “love to come here.” “They don’t want to come up here and see our local stuff,” Rosenberger said. “They’re paying to see stuff they haven’t seen before.” Local kids aren’t going to attract financial sponsors either. Companies such as Nissan, Chevrolet, Walmart — all sponsors of the festival — “want someone with national presence.” Rosenberger doesn’t know what the budget was in the earlier days of the festival. “But I’m sure they got a lot of things for free,” he said. ”It just doesn’t work that way anymore. Eventually, the festival had to come around to raising the money and spending the money.”

The future In the early days of the festival, people used to caravan in their cars out to the orchards to see the beautiful blossoms. No one does that anymore, Rosenberger said, so the festival wouldn’t necessarily end if the apple orchards were to disappear. “We assume people would want to celebrate the beautiful area,” said Rosenberger. And so the show will go on. In fact, the 100th celebration is already on the minds of organizers. At 67, Rosenberger knows he’ll no longer be the executive director, a job he’s held since the late 1990s. But he’ll be happy, he said, “to pull up a chair and watch the parade go by.”

from Page E1 “The people who attend know there’s a very strong possibility there’s going to be a very big name that is the featured speaker,” said Russ Potts, who co-founded the Sports Breakfast in 1965 with Dick Kern. “Also, I think it adds a whole other dimension to the Grand Feature Parade and the Firefighters’ Parade. “I’ve always felt where [our festival] is different is, how many small communities can look out there and see Cal Ripken? Or Mickey Mantle? Or Dizzy Dean (baseball), or Jesse Owens (track & field), or Sugar Ray Leonard (boxing), or Bobby Riggs (tennis), or Steve Lundquist (swimming)? You name the sport, we got the biggest and the best. I went to my 39th [NCAA men’s basketball] Final Four this year, and the athletic director at Oklahoma [University], Joe Castiglione, was asking me, ‘Who’s your celebrity this year at the Apple Blossom Festival.’ It hadn’t been announced yet, but he said, ‘It’s amazing the people you’ve gotten there.’ ” Prior to 1965, the Apple Blossom Festival didn’t feature many sports guests. The yearly celebrity list shows that the festival pulled off a major coup by getting renowned baseball figures Roy Sievers, Chuck Stobbs, Jim Lemon and Eddie Yost in 1958, but there doesn’t appear to be many sport figures beyond that. But 1965 heralded the arrival of boxing great Jack Dempsey as the Grand Marshal. Apple Blossom executive director Tom Baldridge asked Potts — sports editor at The Winchester Star at that time — if he would serve as chairman of an event featuring Dempsey. Potts and Kern planned an event for the George Washington Hotel, and the Sports Breakfast was born. The following year fea-

Apples

GINGER PERRY/The Winchester Star

Runners head out at the start of the Valley Health 10K race in 2015. The first 10K was held in 1982.

Rosie Schiavone

Russ Potts

tured a new title to the festival celebrity list — Sports Marshal — and Washington Redskins great Sammy Baugh filled that role. Over the years the “biggest and the best” names continued to make their way into Winchester. With no money budgeted to secure those sports celebrities in the early years, Potts said sponsorship connections were critical in getting them to come. “Sometimes they had already had existing relationships with some sponsors,” Potts said. “Dizzy Dean had a relationship with Falstaff

beer, [football quarterback] Fran Tarkenton had a relationship with Coca-Cola and Jesses Owens had a relationship with Lincoln Mercury.” In 1968, the 28-year-old Potts was recruited to succeed the retiring Baldridge as the festival’s executive director, a role in which he served until 1970. In 1970, Potts left his mark by moving the Grand Feature Parade from Friday to Saturday, and he set up his favorite sports breakfast moment by securing Owens as a celebrity guest. The four gold medals that Owens won at the 1936 Olym-

pics in Germany when Adolf Hitler was chancellor is a defining moment in American history, particularly for black Americans. “He was just an incredible speaker, and a magnificent human being,” said Potts, who helped break the Apple Blossom Festival’s color barrier in 1969 by inviting two African-Americans to be princesses as well as sports guest Leroy Keyes, the Purdue running back who was the Heisman Trophy runner-up in 1968. Potts went on to take a job at the University of Maryland later in 1970, but for many years Potts continued to help grow the Sports Breakfast with the help of increased financial support. In recent years the number of sports guests in any given year has decreased, but the quality is still there. Cal Ripken (2016), Marcus Allen (2015), and Bill Walton and Joe Morgan (both 2014) have all generated excitement as Sports Marshals in recent years at the event’s current location, the Moose Lodge. Potts said it’s great that the Apple Blossom Festival reached out this year to the football coaches of colleges

that receive plenty of local interest by inviting Virginia Tech’s Justin Fuente and Shepherd’s Monte Cater. “This is a rabid college football and basketball town, and we have some of the best coaches in country in nearby schools like Virginia, Virginia Tech and Maryland,” Potts said. In addition to the amazing sports celebrities, it’s amazing how many people participate in sports at the festival, too. The golf tournament (May 3 this year) has been a staple for 23 years (long held at the Shenandoah Valley Golf Club in Front Royal — this is the first year since the inaugural tournament in 1995 that it’s open only to amateurs). It will be the second year for the tennis tournament (April 29-30 at the Stonebrook Club). But it’s the running events that have taken huge strides in terms of participation growth. The inaugural Apple Blossom 10K was held in 1982 and featured 361 runners. The 2012 race featured a record 1,499 finishers, and with 1,267 runners last year it’s still going strong. The Kids Bloomin’

Mile (runners age 6-14) featured about 300 registrants in 2004, but the number of participants grew to more than 1,300 in 2014 and featured a strong 1,067 finishers last year. The 10K race attracts a lot of international talent because of the prize money. Last year’s men’s and w o m en’ s w i nners each earned $1,000, and the success of foreign-born runners prompted Runners’ Retreat, a business on the Loudoun Street Mall, to begin awarding prize money to the top U.S. finishers in 2008. Rosie Schiavone, of Winchester, has been the 10K race director for nearly two decades, and she’s been the director of the Bloomin’ Mile ever since she created it in 2004. She said what makes the races special is the local participation, and because they are events that can bring families and friends together. Parents cheer for their children in the Bloomin’ Mile on Friday afternoon, and family members and friends frequently run alongside each other in the 10K on Saturday morning. “If you go into D.C. to run, you’re getting a mix of people,” Schiavone said. “A lot of the people that run our 10K are from Winchester or Frederick County. It’s an event for Apple Blossom that’s healthy, and that’s important. And the fact that [the Bloomin’ Mile is] an event just for the children makes it really special.” As much as Schiavone likes the local participation, she also enjoys when the festival’s big names decide to partake in the festivities, like when actor Sean Astin ran in the 10K in 2004 when he was the festival’s co-Grand Marshal. “We’ve had [festival] queens who have run, queen’s families who have come in and run,” Schiavone said. “It’s really special when that happens.”

from Page E1 butter, apple slices and apple cider. Nearly 31 percent of Virginia’s 16,704 acres of apple-bearing orchards are in Frederick County, or 4,930 acres, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service’s 2012 census. Neighboring Clarke County accounts for 1.2 percent or 192 acres. The census is done every five years. “Frederick County without a doubt is the largest apple-growing section in the state,” David Robishaw, of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said in a phone interview. The local apple industry peaked in the early to middle part of the 20th century, with as many as 150 orchardists growing apples, recalled longtime Frederick County fruit grower John Marker, of Marker-Miller Orchards on Cedar Creek Grade. Now, there are about two dozen. If the Winchester area was once the Apple Capital of the World, then the late Harry F. Byrd Sr. was its king. The future governor and United States senator from Virginia began raising apples in 1906. By the 1950s, Berryville-based H.F. Byrd Inc. had 1,800 workers at the height of the harvest season, sales in excess of $5 million, 200,000 trees in 11 orchards on 5,000 acres, five applepacking houses, five camp houses

Photo courtesy of Sara Smith of Winchester

Orchardists deliver their apples to National Fruit Product Co. on Fairmont Avenue in Winchester during harvest time in 1920. for workers and 200,000 packing boxes, according to Byrd’s biographer Ronald Heinemann, who called Byrd the “Apple King” of America. The operation, which made a variety of apples products, later added three cold storage plants and another packing house. But the area’s enthusiasm for growing apples was hobbled, in part, by increased government regulations and younger generations that found more lucrative professions, causing many orchards to be knocked down. Alfred and Betty Snapp, of Frederick County, were both raised in local apple-growing fami-

lies and continued the tradition after they married. Now in their 80s and retired from the apple business, they recalled stories about apples being packed in barrels and shipped overseas. Bushel baskets eventually replaced barrels. Next came bushel wooden crates, many bearing the name of their orchard. These days, apples are packed in cardboard boxes. They also remember when apples were graded by hand — a task that is now automated— and when trucks loaded with freshly picked Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, York, Jonathan, Rome,

Stayman, Winesap and other varieties would wait in long lines to deliver mounds of apples to processing plants such as Winchester-based National Fruit Product Co. Inc. “It was hard work,” Alfred Snapp said. As soon as he finished harvesting one crop, it was time to get to work on the next one. “Thirteen months a year,” he added with a laugh. “People think there isn’t anything to it.” His wife remembers seeing him trim apple trees when there was snow on the ground. One year frost killed a quarter of their crop. “We ended some years in deficits,” Betty Snapp said. They also remember when neighbors and other farmers would help with the fall harvest. “The money they earned picking apples for six weeks would carry them through the winter,” Alfred Snapp said. But when those people grew too old to do the work, their children and grandchildren didn’t take over. Instead, migrant labor had to be brought, and it remains that way today, with about 400 workers arriving around Labor Day for the harvest. Many of the pickers are Jamaica, Haitian and Hispanic, and they stay at the Frederick County Fruit Growers Association’s labor camp on Fairmont Avenue. The workers typically pick 14 to 15 bushels of apples an hour. Alfred Snapp said the only aspects of the apple industry that

haven’t changed over the years are Mother Nature’s wrath and the trees themselves. Then he corrected himself. The trees have changed, too. They’re shorter, about 15-feet tall, which is half the height they used to be, and they’re planted in rows that are much closer together — all improved growing techniques that help orchardists produce more apples per acre. Depending on the type of rootstock, 100 to 500 apples trees are planted per acre these days in Virginia, according to the Virginia Apple Board. The estimated commercial yield in the state is 700 bushels per acre, more than twice what it used to be. Growers who use high-density trellis systems are able to produce even more apples more quickly. In mid- to late April, when the apple trees are in bloom, orchards frothing with white blossoms dot the Frederick County countryside. At the Snapps’ home off Clark Road, a handful of “hobby” apple trees that Alfred Snapp tends were covered in blooms on a recent spring afternoon, including Snapp Stayman, which he holds the patent on. Though the number of apple orchards has decreased over the years in the area, those who grow apples are doing it more efficiently. “It’s come a long way,” Marker said.

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