Lilac Princesses Students Representing 12 High Schools Are Vying To Be Crowned Festival Queen On Saturday

FOR THE RECORD CORRECTION: Central Valley High School Lilac Princess Marcy Latta’s name was spelled wrong in a story in Thursday’s newspaper. Correction published on Friday, April 21, 1995.

One of these 12 girls representing Spokane-area high schools in this year’s Lilac court will be crowned the Lilac Festival queen on Saturday.

Jennifer Hunter

Lewis and Clark High School

Jennifer Hunter talks in show tunes. That’s the hazard of spending all your spare time around the school drama department or in theater workshops. But it’s also the benefit.

When she announces, “Everything’s going my way,” the Lewis and Clark High School Lilac princess probably is right.

Hunter, who has set her sights on the Broadway stage, cut her teeth in the Missoula Children’s Theater’s national summer workshops. Last summer she played Miss Adelaide, the comic relief character in “Guys and Dolls.” Hunter also has a serious side to her drama.

“The plays I’m attracted to are about women, their roles and the evolution of their power,” Hunter said.

She has performed with The Box n’ Hat Players, an offshoot of the Civic Theater, since eighth grade. She also sings with LC’s Blue Satin Girls jazz choir.

Hunter, who has a 3.78 GPA, plans to attend the University of Montana.

For the last two school years she has experimented with directing plays.

“Directing gives you a real different point of view in the theater world,” she said. “You’re calling the shots and making the magic happen.”

Christine Valentine

Gonzaga Prep

Christine Valentine spends her summers beside the pool. As a lifeguard for the Spokane Parks Department, the Gonzaga Prep senior spent last summer and hopes to spend this one promoting pool safety.

While Valentine likes the water, what she really enjoys is being around the kids who hang out at the pool.

“I want to influence kids in a positive way and promote a good image of teenagers,” she said.

Valentine serves on the Spokane Leadership Institute, which is a committee of the Chase Youth Commission. That group talks about issues concerning youth in Spokane.

Valentine has promoted the idea of random acts of kindness in school and in the community, as a way that teens can turn around negative aspects of their image.

One act of kindness was helping her mom coach the Cataldo Catholic School eighth-grade softball team last spring.

Valentine, who has a 3.98 GPA, plans to study sports medicine at Arizona State University. She already has experience in that field, having served as a student trainer for Gonzaga Prep’s football team.

Emily Ireland

Ferris High School

Emily Ireland has dribbled the basketball around more courts than she can remember. Last summer, Ferris High School’s Lilac princess played on the Spokane Stars - a girls all-star team made up of high school players from around the Inland Northwest.

“It was good because we were all the best players from Spokane-area high schools,” Ireland said. “On that team we were all-stars. So we had to learn to share.”

The team traveled all the way to a national competition in Cleveland before losing a game. But she shrugs off the defeat. Instead, she reflects on how she was able to help her team go as far as it did.

“Being a leader is just stepping up and taking the the role,” Ireland said.

She plans to take that experience of teamwork into the Lilac court.

Besides sports, Ireland maintains a 3.76 GPA and has been on the honor roll for all four years of high school.

On weekends she is a hostess at Luna, a South Hill restaurant.

She plans to attend a state college and wants to play basketball next year. She also hopes to spend some time with her older sister, Theresa, who is spending the year in Chile.

Sarah Barnes

North Central High School

Sarah Barnes looks for ways to enact her ideals. She spent her junior year - while her mom and her new stepfather were on sabbatical in Seattle - working in a soup kitchen there.

Back at North Central High School for her senior year, Barnes took a brave step. Her mom moved to Pullman where her stepfather is a Washington State University adminstrator. Barnes decided to stay in Spokane. She wanted to graduate from NC.

“It’s important to me to be in a school I can be involved in,” she said.

She lives with a girl she’s been friends with since first grade.

“It’s made our friendship a lot stronger,” said Barnes, who spends weekends with her family in Pullman or in Spokane.

During her freshman and sophomore years, Barnes ran track and was class president.

She carries a 3.6 GPA. She’s been accepted by Western Washington University, where she plans to major in elementary education.

Another of her ideals is to just be herself in whatever she does. “Really I’m a singing-in-the-shower kind of girl,” Barnes said.

Sara Bunnell

University High School

Sara Bunnell’s life has been a series of adventures unique to being in a big family. Bunnell - University High School’s Lilac princess - is the sixth of eight children.

Bunnell’s most important lesson: “Relationships are more important than things.”

She learned that lesson four years ago when she took her first drive. Her dad handed her the keys and told her to back the car out - forgetting for a moment that she didn’t have the experience of her older sisters.

Putting the keys in the ignition, she pressed just a little too hard on the gas. The car plowed backwards and bashed into her neighbor’s house. Her dad came out shouting.

Later in the day, he made a point of telling her their good relationship was more important than a dented car.

At school, she’s been involved in student government since her freshman year, and is activities coordinator for the senior class. She carries a 3.8 GPA and has a particular interest in early 20th century history.

She plans to attend Brigham Young University next year, following in the footsteps of three of her older sisters.

Aubrey Beth Allen

Northwest Christian School

When Aubrey Beth Allen was little, her grandmother called her, “my little Lilac princess.” Grandma was right.

Allen, a Northwest Christian School senior, won the title for real this year.

Now she finds herself following in a very unique family tradition: being a Lilac princess. Her aunt was one about 20 years ago and her late grandmother, Louise Lindgren, worked as a “purple coat,” a Lilac Festival chaperone for years.

Allen, who has a 3.4 GPA, plans to attend Chico State University in California.

Last year she designed her school’s yearbook cover, which featured a whirlwind of green foil.

She’s undecided about exactly what she wants to do with her future. But she is interested in becoming either a broadcast journalist or a fashion buyer.

Allen already works in the fashion industry. For two years she’s been a clerk at The Gap. She also is a member of the Nordstrom Fashion Board.

Carrie Keyes

Shadle Park High School

Carrie Keyes has a compassionate heart. The Shadle Park High School senior turned her compassion to volunteering to comfort strangers who had emotional reactions to the Memorial AIDS Quilt when it came to Spokane in November of 1993.

But Keyes said she hasn’t always been as aware of others’ feelings. One significant event in her life turned her around.

In her sophomore year, her family decided to move from Federal Way, Wash., to Spokane. Keyes had one group of friends from the time she began school. She never had to venture out on her own because she and her friends stuck so closely together.

“I had my own friends,” she said. “I wasn’t overly friendly to other people.

“When I came to Spokane I put on a happy face and just went for it. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Keyes has a 3.48 GPA at Shadle Park and works at Safeway. She plans to attend Washington State University and hopes to become a dietician.

She wants to help people do some of the most difficult things in life, such as losing weight and quitting smoking.

Kim Krebs

Rogers High School

Kim Krebs can’t sit still even for a minute. For two years she has been so active she has received Rogers High School’s True Athlete Award - for lettering in gymnastics, track and soccer, plus being a cheerleader and maintaining a 3.6 GPA.

In her spare time she works as an espresso maker at Coffee Capers.

Krebs jumped at the chance of becoming a Lilac princess even though it meant skipping the spring track season. And she’s bursting with energy. At school she taps her foot through classes - minus her usual outlet in athletics.

Krebs plans to attend Spokane Community College. Ultimately she hopes to earn a four-year degree in surgical technology.

Athletics prepared her for the busy schedule of a Lilac princess. Krebs said training for sports has taught her that dedication will allow her to accomplish her goals.

She credits yet another hobby - jazz and tap dancing - for giving her the grace to be a Lilac princess.

Tara Sullivan

Mead High School

Tara Sullivan likes to solve problems. Her favorite problems are in algebra. But she likes calculus, too. Now the Mead High School Lilac princess is putting her ability to use tutoring Brentwood Elementary sixth-graders.

“I’ve always wanted to be able to teach kids,” Sullivan said.

Teaching caught Sullivan’s attention when she was in Brentwood teacher Gary Berven’s classroom. This school year she’s been back in his class as a tutor.

Sullivan, who carries a 3.93 GPA, plans to attend the University of Montana. She hopes to become a high school math teacher.

Her other loves are drama and music. She is in her third year of private voice lessons.

“It’s really fun for me to hear all that I can sing,” she said.

Last fall she played Carrie Pipperidge in the Mead High School production of The Carousel.

Michele Weinman

West Valley High School

Watch out, Jane Pauley. Michele Weinman is after your job. At West Valley High School, Weinman anchors the school’s wry video bulletin.

But she has bigger goals than that. Next year she’s headed to Washington State University to study broadcast news.

“I’ve always been interested in the news,” she said. “I want to be Jane Pauley.”

Weinman has earned a 3.7 GPA at West Valley and is a member of the National Honor Society. But academics aside, Weinman said, being captain of the cheerleading squad has been the most useful experience for her future plans.

“I learned so much from cheerleading about time management, organization and responsibility,” she said.

On weekends, she cooks, waitresses and buses tables at the Corner Door Cafe in downtown Millwood.

High school was the first time in her life that Weinman has been able to settle down in one place. Her family moved nine times during the first 14 years of her life following her dad’s posts in the Air Force.

Marcy Latta

Central Valley High School

Being a Lilac princess is just the first of many goals that Mary Latta hopes to achieve. “I didn’t care about the queen thing,” Latta said. “I’m just glad to be where I am.”

Latta is more interested in reaching for ever-increasing and far-reaching goals.

“I just wanted the experience of getting in front of everyone,” she said of her run for princess. “I wanted to get over my fears of speaking in front of people.”

By parade time, those fears will be far behind her.

Until then she’s thinking a lot about her roots. Specifically she’s remembering her great grandfather, Jay W. Hoover, who was the fifth mayor of Spokane.

At Central Valley High School, Latta serves as the student body activities coordinator and carries a 3.3 GPA. She plans to attend Washington State University.

She was homecoming queen this year. And she’s played volleyball and basketball.

She is a member of the Nordstrom Fashion Board.

“I set goals for myself all the time,” she said.

Emily Mattoon

East Valley High School

Emily Mattoon is used to singing to get what she wants. Last year, the East Valley High School student sang her election speech - “Vote for Emily” - when running for student body activities coordinator.

“It sounded pretty cruddy, but I got elected,” she said.

She now sings with the school’s eight-member jazz ensemble. She’s about to begin rehearsals for a role of Maria in “The Sound of Music.”

Next year, Mattoon, who has a 3.4 GPA, plans to study music at Brigham Young University. She hopes to become a high school music teacher.

At home, Mattoon takes another kind of role. She has just become a state registered respite care provider. Her two foster brothers are developmentally delayed, and her registration as a care provider allows her to help her parents take care of her foster brothers.

“When a family takes in developmentally delayed foster children, it’s a decision that the whole family makes,” she said.

MEMO: Marcy Latta’s name was spelled Mary in the story.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Stories by staff writer Kara Briggs