Coronavirus concerns disrupt Strawberry Festival Pageant

This year’s Strawberry Festival Royalty will be crowned in a more private gathering due to concerns around the coronavirus.

The annual April Friesner Memorial Royalty Scholarship Pageant was scheduled for March 14 at the Marysville-Pilchuck High School auditorium.

“The school district has cancelled public use of M-P facilities,” said Maryfest board member Sandie Phipps.

Facility use was cancelled effective March 5 and is expected to continue for an undetermined amount of time.

Other venues were already booked or following the same guideline recommendations from the Snohomish Health District and not scheduling new events.

“Yesterday [March 5], the board decided that we are going to do an abbreviated pageant with the kids,” said Phipps, which will be held at the Maryfest’s own offices.

“We will not be selling any additional tickets at this time,” said Phipps.

Each pageant participant will have the opportunity to bring some family along to the event though.

The event will be open to family members, people who already have tickets, press and Maryfest board members.

“This is partly due to the limited space we have available at our office,” said Phipps.

Maryfest board members also didn’t want to create too large of a gathering for the pageant as well.

“We do not want to endanger further people for this event,” said Phipps.

The Maryfest office will be going through a thorough cleaning before the event.

Phipps said the pageant will be scaled back significantly from the normal show that is put on.

“We will try and get everyone in and out of there within an hour,” said Phipps. “It’s going to be a quick deal."

The nine candidates for this year’s Strawberry Festival Royalty have already given their speeches to Marysville City Council and other groups from around the city, so those will not be performed again at the pageant, said Phipps.

“Most of what we’re going to do is the song and dance numbers they’ve been practicing,” she said.

The Royalty Court will be crowned at the event.

Board officials said that the event could not be postponed because the first parade for Strawberry Festival royalty happens on April 4 and the Royalty need to be outfitted with their costumes before then.

More information about the festival is at their new website at marysvillestrawberryfest.com.