The Littlest Cherry Ambassadors

75 years of the National Cherry Festival’s Junior Royalty Program

By Greg Tasker | June 24, 2023

As sweet and tart cherries ripen in the orchards surrounding Grand Traverse Bay, an exclusive group of first-graders and their classmates are putting the finishing touches on colorful school floats for the National Cherry Festival parades.

This special group of kids—56 in all—is, well, royalty. They’re the princes and princesses in the festival’s Junior Royalty Program, which marks its 75th anniversary this year. Each of the 28 participating elementary schools in the Grand Traverse area crown a prince and a princess.

“There’s a lot of excitement in the air,” says Abbey Kaufman, director of the Junior Royalty Program and a special education teacher at Courtade Elementary School. “This is a great opportunity not only for the first-graders involved in the Junior Royalty Program but for the schools as well. The schools get to showcase what makes their community special and tap into the skills of the people at the school.”

Floats, Parades, and Cherry Pie

The Junior Royalty Program has a long history with the National Cherry Festival, beginning in 1926. Initially, one prince and one princess were selected each year for the whole town. Then, in 1948, a royal duo was chosen from seven local elementary schools. The program now includes 28 schools—each of which has its own method for choosing representative royalty—in Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, and Grand Traverse counties. Hundreds of children in northern Michigan have passed through the Junior Royalty Program over the years.

These “littlest cherry ambassadors” are a symbol of pride for their respective schools. And, besides rocking their cherry-themed outfits and crowns, these royal pairs help build school floats and participate in festival activities.

The most visible part of the program, at least for parents and other loved ones, is the Cherry Royale Parade, held this year on Saturday, July 8. The float theme varies for the parade from year to year, and because this year marks a milestone anniversary, schools were randomly assigned a theme from the past 75 years. (Past themes have included cereal, crayons, places or things to do in northern Michigan, countries of the world, and lighthouses.)

The schools and their communities are encouraged to help out with building the impressive parade displays. The prince and princess then get to ride on the floats, along with some of their schoolmates. But that is far from the extent of their royal duties.

These children, Kaufman says, are not simply standing around, wearing a sash, and enjoying the limelight. “They’re doing some hard work. They’re showing up and getting dirty. It’s definitely not the picture of a prince or princess you might imagine,” she says. “They’re working fiercely on their floats right now.”

“They have an entire schedule throughout festival week,” adds Kenneth McArdle, an executive assistant with the Festival Foundation, which oversees the National Cherry Festival. “Some get to experience the U.S. Coast Guard station with a private tour—that’s not something everyone can do. They also get to go and make and bake a cherry pie. It’s one of our great outreach programs.”

The pie-baking piece is organized by one of the festival sponsors, Grand Traverse Pie Company. The junior royalty team visits the pie shop to make a personal-sized cherry crumb pie, and then those pies are given to long-term patients at Munson Medical Center.

“That’s a small piece of what these kids do,” says Kaufman, who is no stranger to cherry royalty. She served as the National Cherry Queen in 2016. “We’ve planted the seeds in these kids that they can do powerful things despite their small size.”

From Cherry Princess to Cherry Queen

For some, the road to cherry fame doesn’t end with the Junior Royalty Program—a number of princesses have gone on to be crowned National Cherry Queen years later. Princesses and queens can run through multiple generations of families, and many Junior Royalty later become involved as volunteers with the festival.

Among the princesses who have climbed the royal ladder is Allie Graziano, who was crowned National Cherry Queen in 2021.

“It was like having a front-row seat to the festival,” Graziano says about her experience as a princess from Mill Creek Elementary School in Williamsburg. “I was born and raised in Traverse City and went to the festival every year, but I had never experienced the cherry festival the way I did when I was a princess.”

Graziano, now 24 and a registered nurse at Munson Medical Center, enjoyed the parades, all the festivities, and “eating all the cherries you want,” she says. “It was really cool to participate and cool to be a big part of this town’s heritage … The community recognized us as something special too. Everywhere I went people would say ‘Hi, princess!’ Who in first grade can say they’ve been in all these parades and have done all these things for the festival?”

Her time as a princess inspired her to want to be queen one day, a year-long experience that was much more involved and equally rewarding. “You really gain a deeper connection to your hometown,” Graziano says. “I learned why my hometown is so special, and being treated like royalty really leaves an impression on your heart.”

She adds that one of her focal points during her reign was to educate school children about the cherry industry and its importance. “I have a lot of respect for cherry farmers and the festival and all the work behind the scenes.”

Planting Future (Cherry) Seeds

While the Junior Royalty Program looks a little different each year, there is hope by Kaufman and others that the program will evolve to expand the children’s roles as ambassadors of the National Cherry Festival and their schools.

“I would love for the kids to become active community members and changemakers,” she says. “There are many ways they can serve the community. There’s power in numbers.”

The goal is to make them visible beyond the National Cherry Festival and a week of festival-related activities. Having the kids join in beach or park cleanup or other community activities are possibilities.

Kaufman says engaging “our young ambassadors in the program and the festival is paving a path to leadership in the future … What little six-year-old is not going to remember being on that float and that experience? … It can be hard to envision what a six-year-old will become, but we’re planting seeds in our youngest learners, fostering a love for this year that we hope continues a lifetime.”

Learn more about the Junior Royalty Program at cherryfestival.org/p/other/junior-royalty.