Queen Darian Meissner gives her acceptance speech after her coronation last Wednesday night. Meissner’s grandmother and two great aunts were also crowned as Queen in the early 1950s.
Darian’s grandmother, Aileen Lewis, center, stands with her 1953 Fourth of July court. From left: Mercedes Prescott, Sylvia Zimmerman, Lewis, Myrna Stokes and Sylvia Casey.
Sentinel writer
When Darian Meissner was crowned as the 2013 Fourth of July Queen on Wednesday, July 3, she achieved something special – she became one of the youngest women to even wear the tiara – and she followed in the footsteps of her grandmother, Aileen (Lewis) Meissner, and her great aunts, Patricia (Lewis) Mork and Colleen (Lewis) Morris.
The win for Darian came after an exhausting month-long push for ticket and food sales across the Borough and in Petersburg. In the end, she walked away with her tiara and roses after amassing a record-breaking $57,183 total.
Sherina Clark (Melzer) previously held the fundraising record at $36,102, which she raised during her 1998 run for Queen.
The Lewis-Meissner family Fourth of July history runs deep, as Patricia was the first Queen ever crowned during the 1950 celebration. An article in the July 7, 1950 edition of the Wrangell Sentinel told the story of that first, historic win.
“Promptly at 12:30, the winner of the Queen Contest was announced as Miss Patricia Lewis,” the story states. “Her attendants, runners-up in the contest were Miss Helen Angerman and Miss Henrietta Bradley. Queen Patricia was crowned by Capt. Caldwell of the Prince George who promptly bestowed a resounding kiss upon her and led her in the next dance. All the queen contestants were given gifts during the ceremony. These girls – Rose Kalkins, Joanne Waddington, Alice Camenzind, Marlene McKibben and Ann Diven, in addition to the three named above, did most of the footwork in the fund-raising drive and it is to them the Fourth of July Committee owes its thanks for the success of the celebration. The girls sold nearly $2,000 worth of tickets in the six-weeks contest.”
In 1952 and 1953, respectively, Pat’s sisters Colleen and Aileen won the crown.
After her win, Darian said she knew she wanted to be the fourth member of her family to wear the crown of Fourth of July Queen.
“I knew I wanted to run since I was about five years old,” Meissner said. “I remember when grandma was still alive and she would tell me about her run. She told me about how much work it was, but also how much fun it was in the end. I loved the crown she had too, so when she would tell me about getting it, I got very excited.”
As an incoming junior at Wrangell High School, Meissner said she chose to run this year, rather than in 2012 or as a senior during the 2014 competition.
“I chose to do it this year because I wanted to have my license with my provisional off,” she said. “It makes it a lot easier to get around. Plus, this year was good because I did not want to do it as a senior. It would be crazy and I need to work on academics.”
Running what was akin to a small army of family and friends as her ticket sales and food crew, Meissner still put in long hours, seven days a week to make her goal of raising $50,000 a reality.
“Even though I had so much help from everyone, they were always looking to me for answers,” Meissner added. “It was awesome that they wanted my input and ideas, but it was still really stressful because of all the time I had to invest to get this done.”
And speaking of investing, Meissner can now put away just more than $17,000 into the bank – or 30 percent of her earnings. It’s money she said she would use for school, as well as other purposes.
“Most of it is going to go towards college,” she said. “But we, as a family, are going to go to Europe for my parents’ renewal of vows on their 20th anniversary. I’m saving up because I want to go backpacking through Europe on my own as well.”
After high school, Meissner said she plans on studying pediatric medicine.
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