Fewer students interested in Lilac Court, but institution is changing to adapt
But it’s a scholarship program that has fewer and fewer applicants. According to the Lilac Festival, there were about 50 young women at the informational meetings this fall. Fifteen were nominated by their schools as candidates for the 2017 Lilac Court.
In 2003, The Spokesman-Review reported that Spokane County high schools produced 120 applicants for the 2004 court.
That was the year the Lilac Association began to accept applicants from all Spokane County high schools instead of just the 13 largest schools. At the same time, to cut costs, the Lilac Association reduced the number on the final court from 13 to seven, a move that meant the 13 largest schools no longer were guaranteed a spot on the court.
In the years since that change, newspaper reports indicate that 20 or more schools usually nominate someone for the court. Until this year that number was whittled to the “Fab 14” in the fall, with the queen and the six princesses chosen at the coronation at the end of January.
The Lilac Association went to a new format this year. Seven princesses were picked for the court in December. A queen will be selected from among this group at the coronation ceremony next weekend at Shadle Park High School.
The Spokane Lilac Festival Association is working hard to keep its pageant relevant in a world that’s changed dramatically since the first Lilac queen, Shannon (Mahoney) Mitchell was crowned in 1940.
At that time, it was acceptable to describe the queen and princesses as pretty, pert and lovely, as well as to praise their hair color and peaches-and-cream complexions.
The opportunities and role models for women changed dramatically in the 1950s and 1960s, and that societal shift began to have an impact on who applied for the Lilac court.
Nancy Chapman was a Lilac princess during Expo ’74. Her father, King Cole, was one the people who brought the Worlds Fair to Spokane.
“Things were really changing then,” Chapman said. “I had no interest in being in beauty pageant. I wanted nothing to do with that.”
Chapman said the Worlds Fair showed her that the world was getting smaller and she felt what she calls “a shift.”
“Lilac royalty was no longer just about being pretty. We thought that aiming to be pretty was an old-fashioned idea,” Chapman said. “We weren’t thinking of breaking the glass ceiling – all that stuff was just happening – but we got really smart and strong women on the court.”
That helped shape the organization and pull it away from its beauty pageant image, said Chapman, who is the incoming president of the Lilac Association.
“It made us stronger,” Chapman said. “The Lilac princesses became much more than an ornament on a float.”
When a buxom blonde appeared on the Lilac button in 1977, the local chapter of the National Organization for Women and the NAACP demanded the button be recalled because both organizations considered the image sexist and racist.
The message to the pageant was clear: The role of women has changed – it’s time for you to change, too.
Marilyn Thordarson, who wrote the 75th anniversary book on the Lilac Festival, “Pride, Parades & Princesses,” and was president of the association in 1989, said the 1970s and 1980s also was when the Spokane Chamber of Commerce stopped providing significant staff and office support for the festival and the number of directors – or “purple coaters” – started shrinking from the traditional 99 to 40 or 50.
The selection of the Lilac Court is closely tied to the schools because young women apply to become their school’s nominee for the court – only one applicant from each school moves on to the actual program.
At Lewis and Clark High School, assistant principal Theresa Meyer said four or five young women apply every year, but it’s not something the school keeps track of.
The Lilac Association keeps track of the court, but not of how many young women apply from each school.
Lilac Association co-president Cindy Zapotocky said the Lilac program falls at a very busy time for the seniors.
“They are applying for college and finishing up classes,” Zapotocky said. “They have incredibly busy schedules even without Lilac.”
Thordarson said the focus at many schools has changed.
“In the 1970s and 1980s there was a lot of focus on Lilac. Now there’s more focus on sports,” Thordarson said. “It’s a matter of time and resources for the schools; they’ve shifted their emphasis away from community programs and completely to education.”
The changes to the selection process this year reflect that change of focus. And, it answers complaints that too many candidates went through the time-consuming and expensive program only to get cut at coronation.
“We want to make sure they get value from the program,” Zapotocky said.
Dresses and gowns are sponsored by local businesses, as is transportation to events and presentations, but princesses spend money on makeup, hair and accessories.
“We try to limit the cost to the individual girls,” Zapotocky said.
Mackenzie Cleays DeGon represented Freeman High School in 2014 and she became a Lilac princess.
She wrote in an email that being on the Lilac Court was a huge time commitment, and that she missed a few days of school.
“Young women who are heavily involved in sports during the year are asked to reconsider Lilac,” DeGon wrote. “I tried to continue golf during that spring but missed practices and matches.”
But Lilac helped her gain confidence as a public speaker and taught her how to have conversations with nearly everyone and she never regretted joining the program, she said.
Chapman is full of optimism for the program and she said she feels another shift now.
“We have to let the public know that it’s about finding fantastic youth to represent Spokane,” Chapman said. “We are a community-oriented program. It’s not about what you look like.” Chapman said she realizes that many look at the Lilac program as beauty pageant but she emphasized that being a Lilac princess is not about being a size 2.
“It’s about being healthy and taking good care of yourself,” Chapman said. “You can do that as a size 16 or a size 0.”
Chapman said Lilac is sometimes unfairly criticized for being “too white” because the majority of Lilac queens are Caucasian.
“If you look at all the women selected for the court there is diversity,” Chapman said. “We represent what the population of Spokane looks like.”
She said today the Lilac Association puts an emphasis on service and of course on honoring the military at the annual parade.
The Lilac program may be shrinking, but that doesn’t mean the young women on the court get less out of it.
DeGon, the 2014 princess, wrote in an email that she can’t explain exactly what it means to her to be a Lilac princess, but she always adds the Royal Court to her resume.
“You’d be surprised how many connections you can make in Spokane just through the Lilac Festival,” DeGon wrote.
There’s no doubt the camaraderie of the court, the networking and the training, means a lot to the women who’ve donned the purple gowns and climbed aboard the float since 1940.
“What does it mean to me?” Chapman said. “Lilac means so much to me that I went back to it after all these years. That’s what it means to me.”