Kannapolis has always liked to crown its queens

 

Norris Dearmon

news@salisburypost.com

I do not know for sure when the first queen of the unincorporated town of Kannapolis was crowned. I suspect it was with the first May Day celebration.

The combined grammar schools probably had the first ones. Later, the high school celebrated May Day until the beginning of World War II, when all celebrations of that type were eliminated. Every thing was devoted to the war effort. 

After the war, the Communists of Russia celebrated May Day with so much pageantry and display of war weapons that the rest of the world lost interest in May Day celebrations.

In the early 1930s, McIver Elementary School began having May Day celebrations at each school, with pageantry enjoyed by many of the parents, as well. By the mid 1930’s the high school began doing the same thing except on a more elaborate scale.

The celebrations were held outside and began with the grand entrance of the queen, dressed in a long flowing white gown. She would be carrying flowers and her escorts would follow her to the throne. There she would watch the pageant held in her honor. 

The pageant would consist of various acrobatics, dances to music and sometimes there would be singing by choral groups. At the end, her maidens would dance around the May Pole holding long red or green and white ribbons. As the ribbons wrapped around the pole, a checkered design would be created on the pole. The pole was about 10 or 12 feet tall. 

At the end the queen would then leave her throne and parade out, with the escorts and maidens creating a passage way for her. The audience was generally quite large, and of course there would be photographs made.

In 1939, I took pictures of the May Day celebration, some of which are shown here. Esteele Peele (Brown) was the May Queen. As can be seen in the picture, it was a very windy day. Her attendants had a hard time holding on to her gown train.

Over the years, other queens of Kannapolis would reign for various occasions. 

One of the first, other than the May Day queens, was the selection and crowning of the Cotton Queen on May 28, 1939, in observance of National Cotton Week. It was a first for Kannapolis and the cotton industry. 

The ceremony was held in the town park. Miss Claudine Barbee (Fowler) was selected from a bevy of Kannapolis’ most beautiful young ladies. She reigned as the monarch of the Towel City’s first Cotton Festival. Instead of flowers she carried a miniature bale of cotton. The program consisted of music and an all-cotton style show with an address by Mr. J. Paul Lucas of Duke Power. The models for the style show were well known women of Kannapolis. After the program, the Queen was taken on a tour of the town in a 1939 Ford Convertible. In 1940, she reigned as Miss Kannapolis.

Miss Janet Ward Black, whose home was on North Cannon Boulevard in Kannapolis, began her reign as Miss North Carolina on June 28, 1980. She also held the title of Miss Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Her accomplishments were so many, so much  that there is not enough room in this column to list them all. She was highly intelligent and very talented. She was her high school Salutatorian and a Davidson College Honor Scholar. She is now a highly respected attorney, living in Greensboro and currently serving as president of the North Carolina Bar Association.

Soon many other queens would be crowned in Kannapolis. There are the Miss Dogwood Queens, the Miss Homecoming Queens, the Rhododendron Queens and the Miss Mary Christmas Queens.

•Norris Dearmon is a local historian and a volunteer in the History Room of the Kannapolis Branch Library.