Maple Hall has seen its share of dances and potlucks, but last week it held something more delicate: About 30 children, standing at the precise intersection between childhood and civic duty, auditioning to become this year’s official Skagit Valley Tulip Festival ambassadors.

It is, on its surface, a simple ritual. Fourth and fifth graders from across Skagit County step onto a small stage. They answer two questions. They sit down again. Yet in the careful choreography of the evening — the hush before a name is called, the rustle of paper speeches, the bright bravery of a child stepping toward a microphone — it felt like something closer to pageantry.

The contestants who had not yet spoken were ushered into a separate room, where they colored and ate Girl Scout cookies, kept safely away from the stage so no one could overhear and borrow an answer. The air there hummed with anticipation and frosting.

Out front, parents leaned forward in their seats. Judges balanced clipboards on their knees. On the stage, Tulip Festival Executive Director Nicole Roozen gingerly held a blue basket containing the evening’s wild cards — surprise questions that would send each child momentarily off script.

Why do you want to be a Tulip Festival Ambassador? she asked every child.

And then, from the basket:
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
If you had no rules for a day — while staying safe — what would you do?
Who would you bring to the tulip festival?
What makes you proud?

The children answered as children do, with sincerity.

One boy faltered at first, his answers tentative. But when asked what makes him proud, he paused for a long, searching moment.

“I know a lot about airplanes,” he said confidently.

It was not the answer anyone expected, but it prompted a roomful of applause.

Later, as if the evening had been quietly plotting its own symmetry, Bay View School fourth grader Arlo Smith announced — to delighted laughter — that it was his birthday. If granted any superpower, he said, he would choose super strength.

“And what would you do with it?” a moderator asked.

“I’d lift heavy things no one else could lift,” he replied. “Like an airplane.”

From the audience came a reverent whisper, almost involuntary: Oooh, planes.

Elsewhere in the lineup, Allison Henkin of Bay View calmly declared that her dream pet would be a baby leopard shark because they are “the cutest sharks ever,” prompting moderators to note that no one in Tulip Festival history had ever before described a shark as cute.

Colette Brown, a fourth grader at Immaculate Conception, spoke with quiet admiration of the tulips themselves — their beauty, their mystery underground. If she could bring anyone to the festival, she would bring her dog, because, she reasoned plainly, “Everybody would love him.”

Keegan Baker, a fifth grader from Conway Elementary School, introduced a flicker of capitalism into the proceedings. Asked what pet he would choose, he said a dinosaur. The crowd murmured. Then he added, with impeccable timing: “Because they are extinct and I could probably sell it for a lot of money.” The hall dissolved into laughter.

And threaded throughout the evening was a recurring sentiment — pride in this place. 

By the end of the night, two names rose gently to the top.

Lucy Geddes of Island View Elementary stepped forward with the composure of someone who has recently had to grow up just a little faster than expected. Six months ago, she learned she would be moving away from her friends in California. Since arriving in Skagit County, she has heard story after story about the valley’s tulip fields. She said she wants to serve as ambassador to learn more about her new home, to connect with her community, and — in words that seemed to settle softly over the room — to “grow where I’ve been planted.”

Beside her stood Baxter Kurz of Evergreen Elementary in Sedro-Woolley, confident in a navy shirt, khakis and black leather sneakers. When asked what he wanted to be when he grows up, he answered without hesitation:

“I’m not sure.”

It was not evasive. It was perfectly self-possessed — the answer of a child comfortable occupying the present.

Afterward, reflecting on the evening, Baxter offered a little post-game analysis.

“I had a really good speech that wasn’t just about wanting to win,” he said. “It was about wanting to represent the community. And I mixed in a little humor.”

His advice to future contestants was pragmatic: Research the parameters of the contest and ask a parent to help write it out. Then he returned to something more poetic.

Living in Skagit County, he said, feels “like we live in a rainbow.”

In the end, only two children receive the title of Tulip Festival Ambassador each year. But what unfolded at Maple Hall was less about crowns and more about emergence — 30 young people practicing the art of standing up, speaking clearly and imagining themselves as stewards of something larger than themselves.

Kari Mar is the editor and publisher of La Conner Community News.