Friday, August 31, 2012

August 5, 2012-- Chelsea's Queen's tea on Opening Day of the Athens County fair

 What a cute set up at the extension office!



 Dana and Chelsea Meagan

 Chelsea Meagan and the little Chauncey-Dover kids :)

 Chelsea Meagan and Jordyn (Crooksville Pottery Junior Miss)




 Announcing the parade...



 Katie, the 2012 Athens County Fair Queen, and Chelsea Meagan after the crowning...


 Dana and Chelsea Meagan ...


 Lester and Chelsea Meagan

Wow... After 52 weeks, over 2000 miles, and over 40 events, fairs, and festivals, Chelsea Meagan's reign came to an end. On the plus side, we met so many fun people and visited a lot of cool places that we wouldn't have experienced before. Chelsea Meagan got to obtain extremely valuable experience as an ambassador for our county. On the down side, we certainly got to see the not so nice side of people. Chelsea is blunt, yes, absolutely, and she will always tell people exactly what she's thinking and feeling, but I think that her beauty, brains, and potential in life proved to be much more of a problem for some people. Chelsea Meagan earned this title because of her many accomplishments in 4-H, Girl Scouts, and the Athens County Fair AND her ability to communicate those accomplishments to a panel of outside judges. She would be the very first to resist the idea that she won because she is pretty. Although she had so much love and support from so many of the fair board, at least one person could not do so, for whatever personal reasons/problems that she had, and it made our life very difficult for the entire year. This person didn't even bother to attend Chelsea's luncheon and even tried to throw a big snag in the day by lying about a key detail. Fortunately, we were able to prove that the lie occurred and able to proceed as planned. I'm stunned that an adult in a position of responsibility would be so childish and, really, just mean. Thus, even though this year should have been an entirely happy one, the continual and unnecessary drama cast a shadow over it, and, even though I will miss the people that we met from other places around the state, I was ready for Chelsea to give up her crown, be genuinely happy during a great fair week, and move on to Baylor where people celebrate success instead of finding ways to undermine it. Again, on the plus side, I am very grateful to the many people in and out of Athens County who commented so positively on Chelsea's reign-- quite simply, she visited more places than any other queen, earned cool recognitions (official and otherwise) from others during her travels, and brought more visiting royalty and their chaperones to the Athens County Royalty Tea than ever before. Over 80 people attended her tea. (Haven't had time to even sit down and count yet.) She did a great job, and these indicators all prove it. No one can take those accomplishments from her... but I'm sure that at least one person will do her/his best to try. As for me, I'm excited to re-focus my attention on the little girls and on enjoying Britti's engagement and Chelsea's adventure at Baylor!