The Rose Festival is over. What a fantastic once in a life time experience it was. WOW. First of all, I would like to thank each and every one of YOU for making it possible for me to be a part of it. Thank you for your trust in me to represent the Portland Rose Society. I’ve tried my best with tremendous PRIDE. My only regret was that I could not have all of you with me. It is difficult to tell you what just part of it was like. It is very hard to pick and I don’t think our Editor would be happy if I take up all the room in the Chatter. What was the best? I think the best was meeting and getting to know all of the Princesses. We had the most outstanding 15 young ladies representing our Portland youth. I was glad that I was not one of the judges selecting the Queen because each one of them was a special individual. There were four of them who were not born in the USA and even our Queen Victoria’s parents were Romanian immigrants. We had one young lady who was born in Zimbabwe and she came here as an orphan. When she was asked what she would like to do after she finished her education, she said that she would like to be the next Oprah, not because she is very rich, but she would like to do all the wonderful humanitarian things she is doing for so many people. Interestingly, Victoria was one of my favorite from the beginning and she is now Queen Victoria. My next best time was the visits to the various military ships. It was a tremendous experience to meet all the young service men and women. We hear so many outrageous things on the news about the war and sometimes we may wonder if we are going to survive? After getting to know some of our dedicated servicemen, I don‘t worry anymore: “OUR COUNTRY IS IN GOOD HANDS.” Of course I cannot leave out the Parades. What an experience. My favorite was the Starlight Parade. Half of the time I was in tears. Seeing all the people, nearly 250 thousand, waving and cheering for you. Sometimes they started chanting my name. All of a sudden I became very humble and wondered what did I do to deserve all that? Of course I have to thank you for making our Rose Show a success despite the rainy weather. I hope you all had much fun too! All through the Festival I was telling everybody “We” started all this 121 years ago” when THE PRS WAS STARTED.