SEQUIM — The water will fall, the mushrooms will spin and the royalty will wear butterfly wings, once the wind calms down.
As the 114th annual Sequim Irrigation Festival parade float rolled out Thursday night, a powerful breeze kicked up, lifting the vehicle’s golden fringe — so builder Guy Horton decided to switch off its electricity.
With those gusts going on, it was easier to not have the float’s two waterfalls running.
Irrigation Festival Queen Holly Hudson, 17, in an otherworldly aquamarine gown, arrived just before 5:30 p.m. for the float unveiling; also clutching their black capes were her royal court, princesses Elisha Elliott, Meghan Gammel and Lindsay Merrell, all also 17.
The foursome showed poise befitting their station as they stepped onto the float, which celebrates the 2009 festival theme, “Sequim: a magical place,” with a faux forest and creatures.
The queen and her court practiced their parade waves, as one of this year’s theme songs, Santana’s “Black Magic Woman,” played on the float’s sound system. The girls will travel around the region with the vessel, beaming and blowing kisses to crowds at 17 processions.
Daffodil parade
This Saturday’s Tacoma Daffodil Parade will be the float’s debut, and then the royalty will prepare for the Sequim Irrigation Festival Grand Parade down Washington Street on May 9.
Girls, waterfalls and forest scene will go on to Victoria Days on May 18, the Seattle Seafair July 25, Joyce Daze on Aug. 1, the Hoquiam Loggers Playday Sept. 5, and 11 other parades through December.
Horton, the sometime Elvis impersonator who orchestrates float construction, calls this year’s float “organic.”
He and his volunteer team started in January filling the forest with hummingbirds, a bunny, a fawn, a frog, butterflies and bluebirds, all under a “tree” wearing real Douglas fir bark.
There are also large butterfly wings to be arranged behind the princesses. Only Elliott tried hers on Thursday; Horton said the rest will come out soon.
Admiring the freshly revealed float on Thursday, Irrigation Festival marketing coordinator Jean Wyatt praised the depiction of Sequim’s natural splendor.
“It has the ferns, the flora, the fauna ¬– all that good stuff,” she said.
After 14 minutes of posing and waving in the wind, the queen and princesses alighted on solid ground again, somehow looking unruffled: No teeth achatter, all four tiaras still perched like glittering birds on their heads.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsula dailynews.com.
