SEQUIM — Emily Westcott, longtime volunteer and the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce’s 2004 Citizen of the Year, will serve as the grand marshal for the 116th Sequim Irrigation Festival.
Westcott, a retired educator who ran Red Ranch Restaurant through 2003, said she was surprised and pleased to be selected.
“I thought you had to live here longer,” said Westcott, originally of Tacoma, who has lived in Sequim since 1979.
The Sequim Irrigation Festival grand marshal and grand pioneers were introduced Saturday after this year’s float was unveiled during the kickoff of the festival, which is scheduled May 6-15, at 7 Cedars Casino in Blyn.
The festival dignitaries will ride in the Grand Parade at noon Saturday, May 14.
Riding the float through downtown Sequim will be members of the royal court: Queen Taylor Willis, 17, and Princesses Stephanie Laurie, 16, Abigail Vidals, 17, and Marissa Haner, 16.
Honorary grand pioneers are Annalee Hermann and Morris Quinn.
Grand pioneers are Gloria Jean Hendrickson Gockerell and Ronald Earl Priest.
Westcott has volunteered for the Irrigation Festival for 17 years.
She has served as president of the Museum & Arts Center in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley for two years.
She also served on the Chamber of Commerce board for many years and is credited with organizing flower baskets and containers on and around Washington Street.
She also is responsible for Christmas decorations at the Bank of America Park at Washington Street and Sequim Avenue and at other locations throughout town, Irrigation Festival organizers said.
Hermann, born in Laramie, Wyo., in 1925, has lived in Sequim since 1947.
She worked at Southwoods Department store on Washington Street for 20 years until the store closed.
Hermann has volunteered at the Clallam County Fair for more than 30 years and has been a member of the Trinity United Methodist Church for more than 50 years.
She is a longtime member of the Philanthropic Educational Organization for Women for many years and is also actively involved with the local homemakers club.
She had five children and now has 20 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren, with three more on the way.
“I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather have raised my kids,” Hermann said of Sequim.
Quinn, born in 1927 in Mossy Rock near Mount Ranier, has attended Irrigation Festivals since he moved to Sequim in 1936.
His mother, Nawasa Workman, was previously named an honorary grand pioneer.
Quinn still works his farm on McComb Road, which he and his wife, Pauline — who died in 1998 — bought in 1951.
“He is the kind of man who exemplifies the hard-working pioneer spirit that has made Sequim the place it is,” festival organizers said.
Morris and his late wife ran Quinn’s Magic Mirror on Seal Street.
He later worked at Peninsula Plywood in Port Angeles.
Morris had three children and has two granddaughters, two grandsons and one great-grandson.
Gockerell is a Sequim native, born in 1927.
She graduated from Sequim High School in 1946 and worked at Sequim Cafe as a waitress for two years before attending business school in Port Angeles. She later worked as a telephone operator for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph in Sequim.
She married Elbridge “Gock” Gockerell in 1953 after they met at a dance in Port Angeles.
They lived in Port Angeles for five years, then moved to Olympia and later to Forks, where he was the Olympic area manager for the state Department of Natural Resources. She worked at the Forks Public Library
After he retired in 1987, the two returned to Sequim.
They raised three sons and have eight grandsons, three great-grandsons and one great-granddaughter.
Priest, a lifelong resident of Sequim born in 1931, is a fourth-generation resident.
His grandfather, Joseph Henry Priest, served as a grand pioneer in 1956. Two of his aunts also have been pioneers for the festival.
He is a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and is a member of the Elks and Eagles clubs.
Priest graduated from Sequim High School in 1950 and worked in logging until he enlisted in the Navy the following year.
He served on the USS Rochester for two years during the Korean War.
After his discharge in 1955, he and his wife, Judy — an artist — returned to Sequim. Priest worked at the Rayonier mill in Port Angeles.
The two have three children, nine grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
The winner of the festival button-design contest is Blake Wiker, a 10-year-old fourth-grade student at Greywolf Elementary.
He is the son of Sven and Karla Wiker.
Laura Friedkin is the winner of the logo design contest with her design for the 2011 theme of “One Hundred and Sweet Sixteen.”
A Sequim artist, Friedkin also was the designer of the logo for the 114th Irrigation Festival theme, “Sequim, A Magical Place.”
