If not for the efforts of a plucky group of Stadium High School students, Tacoma schools would be barred from participating in next year’s Daffodil Festival.
Stadium’s Ecology Club is building a float for Saturday’s Grand Floral Street Parade – on a $400 budget. Thanks to those students, Tacoma high schools will be able to elect Daffodil princesses in 2009 and compete for the festival scholarships, which this year amount to $52,000.
It was a close call, but unfortunately it’s a sign of the times. As the Daffodil Festival celebrates its 75th anniversary this year and readies for the annual parade through the streets of Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner and Orting, the festival faces a number of harsh realities that could threaten its future.
The festival’s original raison d’etre – the region’s daffodil industry – is disappearing as housing developments and warehouses displace farmland in the Puyallup Valley. When the festival started, there were 40 commercial daffodil growers whose operations attracted mobs of sightseers to view their fields. Today there are two growers – and both are looking to sell part of their land for development.
If the valley’s last daffodil farms disappear, does the Daffodil Festival morph into something else? Or just die a natural death? If festival organizers aren’t strategizing about that now, they should be.
It’s already getting harder to put on the festival because the number of volunteers needed to stage parades in four cities has declined. And donations from past big contributors – including the City of Tacoma and the Puyallup Tribe – also have declined. The festival has used up $60,000 of its $100,000 reserve fund to pay basic expenses – an ominous sign.
Interest in the festival has dropped significantly in recent years in Tacoma, where attendance at the grand parade has been about the same as it is in the small town of Orting. And although Stadium students saved the day for Tacoma participation next year, what about the year after that?
It would be a shame if Tacoma students weren’t able to compete for the scholarships the festival gives to the princesses because no community group was willing to build a float. The Daffodil court competition is based on academics and personality as well as appearance. The princess who becomes queen gets a $10,000 scholarship, and each contestant is guaranteed at least $1,000 toward her higher education goals.
Although the festival may seem an anachronism to some, it’s still one of the few events that is of countywide interest. The challenge for festival organizers is to find ways to make it relevant to a new generation of county residents who may not have deep roots here and who have a wide array of other entertainment options.
That won’t be easy, but it’s worth the effort.
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