Royalty keep springtime Maypole tradition

By BRITTANY FHOLER 

Cove Leader-Press 

Members of the Five Hills Scholarship royalty performed a maypole dance Friday afternoon at the South Park playground. 

Dressed in a floral dress and wearing a face mask, Junior Miss Five Hills Hayley Sawyer played Vivaldi’s First Movement on her violin, and joined fellow titleholders Miss Five Hills Emerald Bentley, Teen Miss Five Hills Mary Rhorick, Young Miss Five Hills Angelica Torres, Five Hills Ambassador Briana Liles and Preteen Miss Five Hills Kaydence Roberts in dancing with ribbons around the pole. 

The maypole dance is a traditional form of celebrating May Day, held on May 1 to commemorate the return of spring. 

Torres and her mother Edna spent one day choreographing the dance. It took another day for the rest of the royalty to learn the dance. 

Roberts researched what May Day is all about to share with her fellow royalty. 

“May Day basically is to celebrate all the farmers and hoping that all the crops grow well during the summer and all the agriculture does well,” Roberts said. 

For Liles, her favorite part was when everyone went under the ribbons “because we all got to cooperate and go as teamwork to do it.” 

For Bentley, the dance provided an opportunity of even more symbolism in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“You know, we really don’t have a lot going on right now, but getting together and doing this, it’s symbolizing that the world still keeps going,” Bentley said. “We still have spring. We still have summer. We still need to be thankful for the farmers and the crops and the flowers and the trees. Just like bringing that to the forefront of everything and forgetting about what’s going on and being thankful that we still have everything around us.”

Rhorick said it was nice to celebrate an old American tradition. 

“I honestly did not know what this was like, the Maypole Dance,” Rhorick said. “I had no idea what that was, so it’s always nice to learn something new about our traditions.”

Sawyer kept the group moving with her violin. 

“It took hard practice, but I loved how everybody went along with the beat, just like we were all musicians working together,” she said.