Oregon Public Broadcasting

It's Rose Festival week in Portland. One hundred-and-one years after the first fest, the celebration is still drawing big crowds.

Festival organizers are navigating all the usual logistical challenges this year -- plus a few changes. From the Waterfront Village, April Baer reports on Portland's un-official summer kickoff.

(ambient sound from Waterfront Village)

April Baer through garbled by chewing (munch):  "I'm very pleased to report that OPB was able to thoroughly investigate Rose Festival Waterfront Village concessions, and turned up overwhelmingly positive results, (munch) particularly in the area of corn dogs, curly fries, Thai Chinese barbecue, and the sweet apple pie fries. You should try those."

Molly Ronan, Taylor Allen and Dulce Salgado, members of the 2008 Rose Festival Court

OK, ok, that's maybe more than you needed to hear, but can you blame me? There are precious few days in Portland when the sun comes out, and people can just  kick back, grab a sno-cone, and enjoy. Which is the point of the Rose Festival in the first place.

Jeff Curtis: "We have tremendous respect for that history. That history's what got us to where we are today."

Jeff Curtis is the Rose Festival's executive director.

The festival got its start in the early 1900s. The 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition drew visitors from around the world to Oregon.

Hoping to repeat the experiment, the city fathers turned to a city mother. Georgiana Pittock, wife of the newspaper magnate who owned the Oregonian, was holding a yearly rose show.  You might say in time, that show -- bloomed --  into today's the Rose Festival.

Director Jeff Curtis says the key to keeping the festival alive past the hundred-year mark has been responsiveness.

Jeff Curtis: "An organization has to look at itself, and always look for ways to evolve that's going to meet the needs of a changing public."

That means nurturing the 120-year old tradition of the rose show, but also adding Tall Ships, Dragon Boat Races, documentary film, and the Clown Corps  -- a new Rose Fest tradition,  training everyday Portlanders to sharpen their rubber chicken skills.

It's the little touches that keep Rose Fest fans coming back.

Eighteen year-old Molly Ronan spent her early childhood in the South and grew up going to Mardi Gras. Her family moved to Portland when she was in elementary school, and she got hooked on the Rose Festival. Particularly the Rose Court Queen and princesses in the Grand Floral Parade.

Molly Ronan:  "The big difference, I think, is that when you look at the girls on the Mardi Gras floats, you don't know anything about them. You don't know their names. They're just these girls in beautiful dresses , and they go to high society events." 

But Ronan felt like she knew the Rose Court princesses. And this year, she became one of them, representing Lincoln High School.

Molly Ronan: "We aren't really like that at all, we're not separate on a float, we just mix with the people, and I think that's a really big difference."

The Rose Court has changed along with the Rose City--nine of this year's fourteen princesses are young women of color. But the  Court is not drawing as many would-be princesses as it used to. It's harder to find girls who can make the time commitment, and keep their grades up.

This year, the festival altered the rules, making more room for suburban girls, and imposing penalties to schools that can't consistently field enough candidates.

Critics of the new rules worry they may tilt the process towards the more privileged.  The festival's Jeff Curtis defends the changes, which he says were the product of long deliberations.

So far, all the city's high schools are still represented, by girls like Roosevelt high senior Dulce Salgado.  She's a soccer player who will soon become the first in her family to attend college. Salgado is  spending this week doing the parades, visiting senior centers and schools.

Dulce Salgado:  "Really that's the only time that we like to wear our crowns and I like it like that, because you don't want to wear a crown to everywhere you go. You know?"

While she's proud to be part of the tradition, Salgado's attitude toward her royal status sounds very Portland.

By the way, if you're planning to go and see those Rose Court in the Grand Floral Parade this Saturday, you might want to remember the new No-Duct-Tape-Rule. If you want to go, get there early.

Online:

http://www.rosefestival.org/

http://www.royalrosarians.org/