Manson Apple Blossom Festival

The Manson Apple Blossom Festival opens on a Friday at 7 p.m. in the high school gym, with the pageant march and the crowning of the Queen. Each new Queen keeps a crown of her own, but at the coronation she receives the permanent crown and scepter, made in 1973 by Edna Bennett and handed down from Queen to Queen. She wears them in the next morning’s parade and at every royal function of her year. The 2027 festival, the 107th, is set for May 7 and 8 under the theme “Here Comes the Sun.” The Historic Manson Main Street Association places the festival on the weekend that includes the second Saturday in May. The volunteer Apple Blossom Committee runs it.

Saturday in downtown Manson

Saturday starts at the Manson Grange at 6:30 a.m. with a pancake breakfast: eggs, ham, juice, coffee, and sourdough, blueberry, or buttermilk pancakes. Runners check in from 7:00 for the 2k/5k, which starts at 8:30 and runs through downtown and around Wapato Point Resort. Each entry includes a festival shirt. Manson Growers, which also keeps the Cider Press, organizes the run and the 3-on-3 basketball tournament. The tournament returns in 2027 with play after the parade, open to players from third grade up.

The Grand Parade stepped off at 11:00 a.m. in both 2025 and 2026. The 2026 lineup brought high school and middle school bands, children, horses, entertainers, community organizations, and the royal float. Local media call the parade live as it passes. Entries that throw candy must walk an adult alongside, and the candy has to clear the road. The parade lasted about an hour and a half in 2016, and the year before it had drawn more than 50 entries. In 2026 the Grand Marshal was Susan Fisher, a volunteer at the Habitat Store in Chelan who had for years waved to drivers on the highway between Manson and Chelan. The Royal Court went to the store to ask her, and she accepted with her family present.

After the parade the street fair runs all day, with handcrafted goods from local artisans and food from local vendors. The festival’s own notice promises “the popcorn guy,” plus churros and tacos, and in 2026 there was wine tasting as well. The Lake Chelan Undercover Quilters hang their annual show in the Manson Grange Hall from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. A community art show fills Radiance Winery downtown on Friday and Saturday. In 2026 it hung community and student work, and visitors voted for a favorite piece. The festival also hosts a Holiday Extravaganza on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Selection night and the Royal Court

The court is chosen months before the festival, at a selection night held in January. The 2017 evening, the start of the festival’s 98th year, opened with the flag salute. Master of ceremonies Jeff Conwell then introduced the judges, visiting royalty, past Manson royalty, and the outgoing 2016 court. Seven candidates gave speeches on that year’s theme, “Apple Blossom Roundup,” and each answered an impromptu question about what advice she would give her younger self. With four boys waving blue pom-poms, the candidates danced to “American Made” by the Oak Ridge Boys in cowboy boots and bandanas, carrying red and blue apple-picking bags with seven red apples. The Manson Jazz Band, directed by Matt Brown, played at the intermission. An eighth grader, Jasmine Hernandez, won $50 for the year’s button design. The candidates voted Jasmine Pascasio Miss Congeniality. The 2016 court then crowned Queen Rosellyn Lindert and Princesses Daicy Leyva and Jasmine Pascasio, using crowns made by Susi Bennett.

The court travels the state for the festival and the local apple industry, and so does its float. In May 2026 the float took second place in the Spokane Lilac Festival Parade, a night parade, with its lights on. The 2026 court was Queen Alissandra Mendoza and Princesses Kimberly Sanchez-Izazaga and Maria Villaseñor.

A Farm Bureau invitation, May 1921

The festival’s own history gives the first festival as Wednesday, May 11, 1921. The accounts differ in their details. In 2016 LakeChelanOnlineNews credited the invitation to the Washington Farm Bureau and put the crowd at over 500. A year later the same paper named the Manson Farm Bureau. The organizer, the Manson Chamber of Commerce, and the Main Street association all give nearly 500. Manson Growers, on its own page, says the festival has been held since 1920.

The 2017 account lays out the day. A Sunday School chorus opened it, followed by a speech about the first settlers and a blossom drill with song. The 2016 article says the drill was sung by 13 little girls. A banquet followed at the new Manson Fruit Growers shed. Then came a parade of automobiles through the orchards, 200 of them by the 2017 count and 125 to 200 by the 2016 one. The day ended with an evening dance at the Manson Pavilion. The town was ten years old by then. Its townsite was graded in 1911 and named for Manson Backus, father of the president of the Lake Chelan Land Company. Peter Wapato and Ben Martin had planted apple orchards nearby before 1890.

Mumps, box lunches, and an uphill parade

Ruby Phelps, later Ruby Phelps Brown, became the first Apple Blossom Queen in 1928. Picnic and basket lunches gave way in 1938 to a chicken noodle dinner, which was set aside for fried chicken box lunches in 1969 and 1970. Two queens fell ill during their reigns: Barbara Fort had the mumps in 1943 and Pam Blessin the measles in 1973.

In 1947 the festival moved to Saturday and held its first parade. The route ran uphill from west to east, or, in the 2016 account, “backwards” from Manson Bay to Manson’s Red Apple. Over the early years the court gave up riding in an automobile and took to waving from a float. The first festival button came in 1949. So many were ordered that the extras were used again the next year, with 1950 painted over the old date in fingernail polish. The same year, 1949, brought the only outdoor coronation. A coronation robe was added in 1960 for Queen Jeanine Ferree. The Lake Chelan Fortnightly Club began honoring the royalty in 1970, and the Edible Apple Contest began in 1980 with Jama England as its first chairperson. By 1985 the court had grown to a Queen and seven Princesses.

Jama England’s daughter Megan was chosen Queen in 1994. She rode the float, themed “Rock Around the Clock,” in the 1958 Queen’s dress of her aunt, Judy England. In 2008, as Megan Schoenwald, she took charge of the parade. By 2016 her job began each March with permits for the road closures, then letters to officials, color guards, bands, clubs, and past royalty, who are invited at ten-year marks. She kept school bands from marching one behind another and horses away from the bands and the flashier floats. She changed the order every year to keep it fair, and her eight children helped.

The 2020 festival was to be the centennial, and the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted it. That year the Royal Court recognized healthcare workers, helped with local outreach, and rode in an unofficial parade through town. When the festival returned in 2021, the 2020 and 2021 courts shared it, and former royalty joined the centennial celebration.

Four crowns from a sheet of mylar

Edna Bennett made her first crown in 1948, for her daughter, Queen Marjorie Bennett. In 1951 the princesses got crowns too: Carolyn Sorenson and Beulah Pitts wore them alongside Queen Carolyn Stilley. By 1981 Edna had made 127 crowns, among them those of her granddaughter, 1972 Queen Pam Bennett, and her great-granddaughter, 1980 Queen Susie Miller. That year she passed the work to her daughter-in-law, Juanita (Nita) Bennett, who had been assisting her for four years.

Nita’s son Mel and his wife Susi had moved back to Manson in 1977 and bought an orchard on Upper Joe Creek Road. Susi taught fitness and biology at the middle and high school until 2006. In 1986 Nita handed the crowns to her. Susi’s first set went to Queen Teresa Jones and Princesses Tresa Welch and Dinna Slover, and in 2016 she marked 30 years at the work.

Her year begins around October or November, when she learns the float colors, the color of the girls’ dresses, and the committee’s theme. She cuts the crown shape and small stars and diamonds from a clear mylar sheet. Then she fixes a stiff but flexible wire to the base to hold the crown to the head, and adds rhinestones, sea shells, and pearl beads. All four crowns have to be ready by selection night. Former royalty from the 1950s and 1960s sometimes bring their crowns back for repair. In 2016 Susi named Mona (Miller) Stockholm as the one she had talked with about carrying the tradition on. The committee’s contact page now lists its crown maker as Mona Ferguson. When former royalty ride in the ten-year reunion, Susi restores their crowns or tiaras as needed and lends a crown to anyone who forgot to bring hers.