BUCKHANNON – The West Virginia Strawberry Festival officially has its Teen Queen and Queen for 2019.
During the annual pageant Sunday, Cassidy Myers of Gauley was selected as the 2019 Queen and Gracie Isabella Marsh of Clarksburg was chosen as the Teen Queen.
Miranda Kalaskey of Charleston was named the Queen’s First Maid and won the Photogenic Award. The title of Second Maid for the Queen’s division went to Charley Clayton of Morgantown.
The Teen Photogenic Award and Teen First Maid went to Ally Spellman of Bridgeport, while Buckhannon’s own Madison McCartney was selected Teen Second Maid.
“I don’t think there is an emotion that could describe how I feel right now,” Myers said at the conclusion of the pageant, which was held in the Virginia Thomas Law Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan College. “It’s just happiness — I’m elated, I’m blessed, I’m overcome with joy. I have never wanted something more.”
Myers said she entered the pageant because she loves the community she will now represent.
“This pageant is one of the most prestigious in West Virginia, and everyone’s a whole family here,” Myers said. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, you have a queen, she’s really pretty.’ [The queen] is involved in everything, and I really love that about the community and the festival. I honestly I look forward to [the festival] every year and I’m so excited to get to represent it.”
She said her favorite part about the Strawberry Festival has always been the parades.
“I have always performed in the parade as a showgirl,” Myers said. “That’s by far my favorite part, because of what I saw when I was performing, I know it’s amazing.”
From left: Queen’s Second Maid Charley Clayton of Morgantown, Queen Cassidy Myers of Gauley and Queen’s First Maid Miranda Kalaskey of Charleston .
The new teen queen said she has been involved with the Strawberry Festival for most of her life.
“This is a hometown pageant for me,” Marsh told My Buckhannon. “I’ve been coming to the Strawberry Festival since I was three months old with my family.”
This wasn’t her first Strawberry pageant, either.
“I’ve done the Junior Royalty pageant before, and I said, ‘You know what, I think I’m going to go back to my roots and do [the Strawberry pageant] again this year and we’ll see what happens,’” Marsh said. “I can’t believe it has happened, but it has and I’m so excited.”
Marsh also said parades are also her favorite part of the festival.
“The parades are my favorite part because you get to see so many different cultures,” she said. “I know that sounds weird, but seeing people from different parts of West Virginia, you get to see different personalities and different things I never thought you would see, right here in Buckhannon.”
Full photo galleries from the weekend pageants will be posted on My Buckhannon in the near future.
