2014 Apple Blossom Cotillion crowns queen

Springfield's new Apple Blossom Queen Megan Courchesne with her court Saturday night. Members of her court are Kylie Bellows, Kaylee Haskell, Jennifer Kollman, and Sara Locke.

http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140505/NEWS02/705059995

Published May 5, 2014 in the Rutland Herald Springfield cotillion ‘A Thriller Night’ By Kevin O’Connor Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — Why would a teenage boy, a reporter asked several here this winter, accept a girl’s invitation to rehearse 16 consecutive Sundays for their town’s signature Apple Blossom Cotillion? Alex Hall: Because he has known fellow senior Kaylee Haskell since first grade. Chase Baldwin: Because Kylie Bellows is his girlfriend. Brighton Fontaine: “Because it’s one of the fun-nest experiences you can have in high school.” Michael Kollman, for his part, offered a more casual explanation for escorting Meghan Courchesne. “I was like, why not,” he said. “I thought I’d make her year.” Courchesne’s response? Saturday night, she marched her partner into the center of the Riverside Middle School gym and, after a crowd of 1,000 people held its collective breath, turned the tables and shared a memory to last a lifetime by winning the title of cotillion queen. Yes, the 58th annual event did good, raising an estimated $15,000 for the hometown hospital. But people applauded equally for the “Bad” — just one of more than a dozen songs by Michael Jackson and his family spotlighted in “A Thriller Night — Cotillion Style.” Out-of-towners speeding by the overflowing school parking lot might dismiss the state’s oldest and only continuing cotillion as a trivial throwback to times gone past. But squeeze into the bleachers or wander through the bustling wings and you saw a vital tradition showcasing, via its youth, one community’s future. Ten minutes before the 7:30 p.m. curtain, 14 girls in black gowns and 13 boys in tuxedoes waited outside the building — not for the start of the show, but for Baldwin, who arrived in just enough time to switch out of his street clothes and step into the opening number. And so it went until the crowning conclusion — precise costuming and choreography, then an unplanned moment that revealed the heart beating underneath. Take a communications glitch during “The Way You Make Me Feel” that left half the cast backstage as the music began. What to do? Cotillion co-director Tammy Farmer, seated in the bleachers in a floor-length formal gown, stood up, strode her high heels across the basketball court and restarted the prerecorded music — a move that gave students one last lesson in strength, resilience and can-do spirit. Forty local elementary-schoolers danced to “ABC” (is there anything louder than parents seeing their children shimmy to “shake it, shake it baby”?) and “I Want You Back” (yes, the same crowd watching boys drop to their knees and pantomime-plead to “oh, baby, give me one more chance”). Teenage escorts followed by moonwalking to “Billie Jean” (“wooooo!”) and breakdancing to “Shake Your Body Down to the Ground” (at which point the whistles and whoops skyrocketed through the ceiling). Master of ceremonies Larry Kraft, the hospital’s director of charitable giving, announced several awards, including Farmer and co-director Lisa Rushton’s “choice” recognition of Bellows, Fontaine and Cody Vandenburg; Mr. and Miss Congeniality to Hall and Haskell, and queen’s court honors to Bellows, Haskell, Jennifer Kollman and Sara Locke. Finally came the crowning, which was delivered with a disclaimer from a teary 1966 cotillion queen and current judge Kelly Flynn: “Every one of them is a winner.” Throw in hundreds of family members and friends clapping and cheering, and, for one thriller night, everyone was.