Deadlines are coming up fast for several events in the 2025 Greater Alliance Carnation Festival.
The last day to cast your ballot for the fan favorite in the Golden Carnation Lady contest is June 14. Votes for the contest cost 25 cents apiece, with voting canisters set up at Alliance Area Senior Center, 602 W. Vine St. in Alliance. Tickets for the contest, set at 1 p.m. July 19 at Alliance Area Senior Center, cost $5.
All funds from voting and tickets will go to the senior center. The pageant is open to the public.
The pageant is the first of its kind for the Greater Alliance Carnation Festival and is being held in honor of the event’s 65th year. Organizers say it’s a one-time event for the festival.
The pageant differs from the Greater Alliance Carnation Festival’s queen pageant, in several ways, including that the women do not have sponsors, but the event’s sponsor is Charles C. Weybrecht American Legion Post 166.
Another difference is that the Golden Carnation Lady event includes a talent portion, where the competitors have three minutes to showcase their particular expertise. Such talents might include musical selections, crafts, art, monologue or jokes.
The pageant is open to women ages 65 and older.
Competing in the event are, in alphabetical order, MaryAnn Benson; Corrine Hirvela; Janet Moser; Ruth Sundberg; Renee Thomas; and Georgie Washington.
Tickets are on sale for Carnation Festival’s Community Luncheon
Maryam Jahdi, the 2000 Carnation Queen who now is a psychiatrist working and teaching in New York City, will be the keynote speaker in the Greater Alliance Carnation Festival’s 2025 Community Luncheon.
The Alliance native graduated from Regina Coeli Elementary School and St. Thomas Aquinas High School and now works for the New York State Office of Mental Health as assistant director of forensic services at Bronx Psychiatric Center. She also is associate program director of the forensic psychiatry fellowship program and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
Tickets for the event, scheduled at 11:30 a.m. Aug. 2 at University of Mount Union’s Hoover-Price Campus Center, are $15 apiece. Tickets can be purchased at Compu-Tek, 703 S Union Ave. in Alliance.
The Carnation Festival’s luncheon also will include naming of the Favazzo-Jeswald Founders Award, the Grand Parade marshal and the city’s Citizen of the Year.
This year’s Carnation Festival will run July 31 through Aug. 10 at various locations around the Greater Alliance area.
This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Voting ends Monday for festival’s Carnation Queen
Reporting by Alliance Review / The Alliance Review
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
