Marsha Passmore and Dodie White have been collecting queen crowns for a Florida Strawberry Festival display.
If there is ever a need for volunteers, Plant City residents can put their money on sisters Marsha Passmore and Dodie White to jump in and help. This year, the blood-related BFFs have found yet another way to give back to the community they call home by collecting the crowns of strawberry queens past. The crowns will be displayed at the 2016 Florida Strawberry Festival March 3 to March 13.
The sisters can’t remember a time when they didn’t attend the Florida Strawberry Festival.
Their earliest memory of the event is watching the Grand Parade with their mother, Dora Beveard. Years later, the sisters began attending the festival on their own. As teenagers, they wandered the festival grounds together in hot pants and their best stilettos.
“We thought we were all that and a huge bag of chips,” Passmore said.
As their fashion tastes evolved, so did their volunteer work at Plant City’s biggest event. They volunteered on the trams that pull people around the festival for at least 15 years and have worked at festival booths for even longer.
“We still love it,” White said. “That 11 days is like magic for both of us. There is something here for absolutely everybody.”
About six weeks ago, the sisters began their latest project: collecting the crowns of former strawberry queens to be put on display at the festival as part of the Queen’s Hall of Fame Exhibit, dubbed “Strawberry Royalty Through the Years.”
Just days before the 81st festival begins, the sisters have nearly finished organizing the glittering crowns in their glass-front cases. But they aren’t breathing a sigh of royal relief just yet.
Passmore and White are perfectionists when it comes to anything involving the festival. Today, the annual event triggers within them the same unwavering admiration they’ve had for it since they were children.
REMEMBERING THE ROYALS
Once the festival theme of “Royal Fun for Everyone” was announced, Passmore and White decided to try to collect at least 20 former crowns for their display.
“We looked at the theme,” White said. “What’s more royal than a crown?”
They pitched the idea for the display to Florida Strawberry Festival General Manager Paul Davis, who
immediately sent out a letter to former festival queens asking for their crowns.
It was Davis, along with Sandee Sytsma, vice president of the festival’s board of directors, who asked Passmore and White to take over the queen’s exhibit the year before. In the past, the chairmanship was held by former queens Barbara (Alley) Bowden, Sherrie (Chambers) Mueller and Silvia (Azorin) Dodson.
“Sandee Sytsma and Paul Davis called and asked to meet with us,” Passmore said. “We weren’t sure we would do it justice.”
The sisters accepted. They moved the existing queen’s exhibit from the festival’s main exhibit hall to the Neighborhood Village.
At that time, the queen’s exhibit boasted a series of photos of each former queen, ranging from first queen Charlotte Rosenberg in 1930 to Samantha Sun in 2015. Passmore and White dusted off the photos and rehung each one in a long glass case. At each end of the case, they left room for a former queen’s dress to be displayed.
“We liked the casing, but felt it wasn’t quite finished,” White said.
Once the 2016 theme was announced, the sisters came up with their idea for a royal piece of history to be added to the exhibit. A shadow box for the crowns was added to the display, complete with group photos of former festival queens and individual photos of the 2016 court.
Passmore and White also added current Queen Haley Riley’s unforgettable rose-print dress to the display and Sherrie Mueller’s 1971 crown and queen attire. The latter was loaned to the sisters for the display by the 1914 High School Community Center.
“We selected Sherrie because she recently retired, and she was one of the three who did the display,” Passmore said.
The sisters ended up with a total of 23 crowns for the shadowbox.
“We’re thrilled about the shadow box this year,” White said. “Pulling from the theme seemed to work.”
CROWN COLLECTING
The sisters noted that many former festival queens were ready and willing to temporarily donate their crowns for the 11-day event. Some sent them back to Plant City from as far as Atlanta.
Still, they faced some challenges in their project. Following the 1941 Florida Strawberry Festival, the event was halted until 1948 because of World War II. Once the festival picked up again with the crowning of 1948 Queen
Barbara (Alley) Bowden, the queens had to return their crowns to the festival at the end of their reign. Named the “traveling crown,” the same crown was used from 1948 to 1958, and another was used from 1959 to 1964.
Passmore and White learned about the traveling crowns when they began talking to former queens about their project. 1953 Queen Ruby Jean (Barker) Redman told the sisters that by the time her reign began, a few of the rhinestones were missing from the crown.
“They were very frugal, I’m guessing,” Passmore said. “They likely had to be returned because of the expense.”
“We still love (the Florida Strawberry Festival). That 11 days is like magic for both of us. There is something here for absolutely everybody.”
–Dodie White
Though Passmore and White were unable to track down the traveling crowns, they had an easier time collecting many of the crowns from 1965 and onward. Beginning in 1965, each crown has a different design, making it unique to each queen.
As Passmore and White spoke with former queens, many told the sisters that being named queen was still one of their greatest honors.
“It makes us want to do a good job for them and say, ‘I’m so glad I participated in this,’” White said.
The project has a special meaning to the longtime Plant City volunteers too.
“Marsha and I stay very busy, and we’re torn in a thousand directions on a daily basis,” White said. “There’s very little time that we get to spend together, just the two of us. Working on the queen’s exhibit is one of those sister times. We’re thankful to God for allowing us to have that bit of time to work together on the exhibit.”
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.
