The Donnybrook Apple Festival 1983

The fourth festival since its revival in 1978 saw a co-ordinating committee drawn from the district's three service clubs. With Kevin Gardiner elected as Chairman and Bob Vukovich from Apex, Rod Connaughton and Doug Henderson from Rotary, Linsey Thomas and Les Young from Lions with Annette Johnston as Secretary, the job of putting it all together started. This year Lions ran the queen competition and Rotary, once again, the ball. The Rev. Dr. Russell Hardiman, Catholic priest and author of "Early Days in Donnybrook" wrote a foreword to the programme that put the festival in perspective and I feel is worth repeating. With a foreword like that the committee had a lot to live up to but they rose to the occasion. The success of the festival now rested with the number of queen contestants, as the more contestants, the more floats and the greater the spectacle of the parade. Family and friends of the contestants also meant more people were involved and this had a domino effect on crowd numbers. When you consider that the early festivals only attracted two or three entrants from each town, now the festivals were regularly attracting over ten girls from Donnybrook alone you must wonder what had changed. One thing was that the contestants only had to pay a $200 entry fee to Lions who used the money to run the competition. The girls could raise more money, which they could keep for their organisation if they wanted, but most just raised the entry fee. Many business houses sponsored girls with no intention of raising money. The other change was that the judging was carried out simply on personality, deportment, general knowledge and knowledge of the apple industry. After all the winning Queen would have to represent the industry, not only in Singapore but also to promote it in Western Australia. This made a difficult task for the judges who had to assess the girls over a period of a few hours and come up with a winner. Their choice on many occasions was a surprise but I don't know of any girl who everyone agreed was a clear winner. However there was no major error of judgement and every girl returned from Singapore having created a very favourable impression whilst over there. This year there were eleven contestants.

CONTESTANT SPONSOR; Janet Attwood Donnybrook Traders, Susan Henderson Rural Youth, Carmel Didio Apex Club, Janine Trigwell Donnybrook Hotel, Rosanna Martella Lions Club, Cath Miller Football Club, Carol Hilditch Rotary Club, Anne Cristaldi Donnybrook Newsagency, Margo Tuia Country Club, Tammy Saunders Donnybrook Pharmacy, Terri Harbeck Argyle Districts.   (Courtesy of Doug Henderson's book "Apple Queens & Festivals")
 

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