From the Asparagus Queen to the Cherry Queen, there are dozens of food-related royal titles given to young women in Michigan each year.
After a week of competing for the crown Lillian Gray, Magdalen Kleinrichert, Aubrey Manchester and Georgia Walker gracefully entered the ballroom at the Park Place Hotel in Traverse City. It's the 100th year of the National Cherry Festival.
The four young women went through two-rounds of judging based on their interactions with the community during the Cherry Festival and how they did in formal interviews.
“We want to make sure that she is articulate and well spoken,” said Cindy Pleva-Weber, the assistant director for the Cherry Queen program. “We're looking for that extra something special and sparkle and drive that will make them the best advocate and spokesperson for our great industry.”
The crown comes with a $10,000 scholarship and the responsibility of being an ambassador for the cherry industry.
Before we get to who won this year's crown, it's important to understand how the title has evolved since the festival's inception.
A legacy of Cherry Queens
Cat Muncey is a filmmaker who created a documentary honoring the Cherry Festival’s 100th celebration. A preview of the film screened during this year's festival and Muncey said the full version will be released soon.
During her research, Muncey found that many things at the festival have changed over the years, but there’s always been a Cherry Queen.
“I mean, the first Cherry Queen was just, she was just drawn from a hat," Muncey said.
What started off as a fun beauty contest has become a title that comes with many responsibilities. Muncey said every Queen brings something special to her reign, even while juggling being a cherry industry ambassador and community leader.
Pleva-Weber, the now assistant director of the Queen Program, had several unique experiences as the 1987 Cherry Queen.
Pleva-Weber said she had been trying to come up with new ways to market cherries when her father changed the industry completely. He was a butcher, and he experimented with adding tart cherries to sausages and beef.
“One of the things my father noticed was that whenever he put tart cherries in a meat product, the shelf life seemed to be extended," Pleva-Weber said.
After her father’s discovery, Michigan State University studied tart cherries and discovered they had a variety of health benefits.
According to Pleva-Weber, schools in 17 states started serving her father’s cherry meat.
Pleva-Weber said the title can also come with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
Some queens delivered cherry pies to Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1987, Pleva-Weber delivered a pie to Vice President George H.W. Bush.
“We got dropped off at the White House," Pleva-Weber said. "We had to go through security, the cherry pie went through security.”
Pleva-Weber said other queens have had their own special moments, like being on national talk shows. But being the Cherry Queen is not just fun – it’s hard work.
Do they have what it takes?
Muncey, the documentarian, recalled how the most recent Cherry Queen was juggling school and being a public figure with a busy schedule.
“She was in pre-med and she's, you know, studying for exams and then driving here in the middle of the night to make a morning visit to a hospital," Muncey said.
And that hard work starts long before the Queen is chosen. It’s tradition for the top four Cherry Queen applicants to spend the week with the current Cherry Queen. They attend dozens of Cherry Festival events while being secretly scored.
“I kind of feel for those ladies just having to be like smiling all the time and, you know, just like having so much crowd interaction," Muncey said. "It’s pretty grueling."
All of that hard work leads to the announcement of the new Cherry Queen at the end of the week.
Looking at their feet, all four women held hands as the host announced Georgia Walker as runner-up and Magdalen Kleinrichert as the 2026-2027 National Cherry Queen.
The 22-year-old, Traverse City native was beaming as she wore the National Cherry Queen Crown and sash for the first time.
As a law student, Kleinrichert said she’s interested in understanding how taxes and grants work and can help farmers in the cherry industry.
“For any young girl listening to me, you need to run for this," Kleinrichert said after she got off stage. "If you're 19 to 25, you need to be doing this. It’s the most incredible experience that you could ever get.”
The new Queen said she’s looking forward to learning as much as she can about the cherry industry.
“Let's eat some cherries,” Kleinrichert said.
