Sunday evening marked the beginning of a new reign for the newly crowned Watercade royalty.
At coronation, eight ladies were vying to be crowned the new Miss Litchfield or one of the two Watercade princesses.
Who came out on top surprised the winners themselves.
Hailey Stoffer, 18, nabbed the Miss Litchfield crown while Justine Madsen, 18, and Michelle Oster, 18, were both crowned Watercade princesses.
“Once Karly put that crown on top of my head I thought, ‘Oh boy,’” said Stoffer, who expected that she would be crowned a princess, if she won anything at all.
Disbelief of their recent crowning was also shared by Madsen and Oster.
“It was an exciting moment,” Madsen said, “I didn’t expect it. I was shaking really badly,”
“More like tremors,” Watercade commodore Sharaya Hagen interjected with a laugh.
Oster agreed that disbelief was the first emotion she felt after being crowned. She also recalls looking at Madsen, who was crowned first, and thinking, ‘We have matching crowns,’ she said with a laugh.
“I thought, ‘Is this real life?’” she said, adding that Stoffer also kept asking her to pinch her to convince herself that this wasn’t a dream.
New to this year’s Watercade royalty program was a ghost judge. The royalty had no idea that there was a ghost judge until 10 minutes before they walked on stage for coronation Sunday evening.
“That made me so nervous,” Madsen said.
Stoffer agreed, “I was worried that I said something stupid.”
After the girls were crowned, their social media “blew up” with messages of congratulations from the community, many of whom they have never met.
Stoffer explained that she went to McDonald’s after coronation to grab a bite to eat. “Congrats, Hailey” was already on its message board when she pulled into the lot.
The trio, who have been friends since grade school, couldn’t be happier that they get to share their reign together.
“I’m most excited for the parades,” Madsen said, noting that blowing kisses to kids and seeing their reaction is her favorite part.
The new Watercade royalty will be in their first parade Saturday in New London.
As for the rest of the year, the girls are already planning on new event ideas and community service projects to improve Litchfield, some of which are updates to the dog park near Lake Ripley and cleaning Lake Ripley.
As of Monday morning, the girls were still basking in the fact that they have been crowned the newest Watercade royalty.
“I told my mom I wanted to sleep standing up so I could keep wearing my crown,” Oster said with a grin.
Stoffer laughed and a nodded in agreement.
“I’m getting butterflies just thinking about (coronation). I want to be recrowned again because it was a fun experience,” she said.
Copyright 2016 Litchfield Independent Review/Crow River Media/Media News Group.