Community members create float for visiting royalty

Every year, the Ritzville Festivals Association creates a breathtaking float for the Distinguished Young Women royalty to use in parades across the state. This year was no different, with the organization creating a stunning Cinderella float for the local girls.

But for a week leading up to the Ritzville Community Parade, the Ritzville Festivals Association and volunteers were hard at work building a second float.

Distinguished Young Woman of Ritzville Hallie Jo Galbreath attended the DYW state competition earlier this year, and created lasting friendships with many of the representatives from across the state. Galbreath made the decision to invite all of the DYW winners to the local parade via a Facebook group, and the response was outstanding.

“I did an open invite to everyone for the parade,” Galbreath explained. “Everybody wanted to come and be involved, which was good, but bad because a lot of the girls don’t have floats.”

Galbreath explained many of the girls had never participated in a parade and did not have cars or floats to use. In an effort to ensure every girl attending would have an opportunity to ride on a float, Galbreath reached out to the Festivals Association for help.

Originally, Galbreath thought only three or four girls would attend the parade, so the float started small. But when Galbreath started receiving more responses from the DYW group, she knew the float needed to be much larger.

Larry Swift donated a pickup and trailer for the group to use, and while the trailer was in rough shape, Brian Kramer worked tirelessly to ensure the float would be safe for the visiting royalty.

Debi Balfe, Jan Marshall, Marsha Bradshaw and Ann Olson quickly delved into the decorations used on past floats for inspiration. With a lot of ocean-influenced décor stored at the Festivals building, the volunteers decided to do an Under the Sea themed float.

When parade day finally came around and rain greeted participants, Galbreath said she thought many of the girls would back out.

But to her surprise, everyone who said they would attend showed up early in Ritzville to be a part of the parade.

The group met in the American Legion Hall prior to the parade for the girls to catch up and introduce other DYW finalists who came with them for the experience.

When it came time to go to the floats, Galbreath said all of the girls were shocked with what the community had created for them, just so they could have a float at least once in their DYW experience.

“It was fun to see their reaction, because most of them hadn’t been on a float before and they were thrilled they got to be in a parade,” Galbreath said. “I was so surprised how positive they were about the rain… They all had an amazing time, and were impressed with the parade and the amount of people who came out to watch.”

The DYW royalty riding on the float were Newman Lake DYW Ellie Reavis, Colfax DYW Sarah Appel, Colfax DYW finalist Pearl Grittiths, Othello DYW Olivia Giles, Othello DYW finalist Alicia Colunga, Othello DYW finalist Thalia Ramos, Colton-Uniontown DYW Zoe Moser, Moses Lake DYW Sariah Aronsohn, and Moses Lake DYW finalist Cassidy Earl.

Galbreath said the opportunity to meet up with friends she met at state was an amazing experience, and she enjoyed being able to introduce Ritzville DYW finalists Holly Nygren and Samantha Asmussen to the group.

The Ritzville girls have three more parades to attend this summer, and Galbreath said they are grateful to have such an impressive float, and to have a dedicated group of volunteers in Ritzville who are willing to reach out and help others to have a once in a lifetime experience.