Newspaper Article 1973 – Orange Queen Festival

About 250 people attended a cabaret evening staged by the local Round Table Club on Saturday night for the Whakatane eliminations of the Orange Queen Festival.

The 12 contestants had been interviewed privately by the judges the previous evening and were presented at the cabaret and interviewed by the MC, Mr Dick Hales, while the judges made their final assessments.

A touch of humour was added to the evening when a 13th contestant entered rather late but was obviously a male hoping for a quick trip to California. He/she was very appropriately dressed, much to the delight of the audience.

After the presentation and interviews a sketch entitled Travelrama was presented with the prize being 3 weeks holiday at the Piripai oxidation ponds. The winner appeared to have just come from whitebaiting and was dressed in gumboots, baggy shorts and an umbrella and seemed very pleased with his prize which included 8000 sq ft of mosquito netting, an inflatable life-raft for the unusually high tides at the oxidation ponds, a large nose peg for the unusually high smells.

When this was completed the judges announced the six finalists to go through to the finals in Tauranga on August 24. The finalists pictured from left to right are: Judy Anderton, sponsored by Radio 1XX; Heather Print, sponsored by Eastern Bay Builders; Jane Kawe sponsored by Mirror Newspapers; Kathleen McSweeney, sponsored by East End Auto and Marine Services, Port Ohope; Ann-Marie Van der Aa sponsored by the Whakatane Board Mills and Karin Burns, who is sponsored by the Whakatane Hotel.

The girls were all presented with a bouquet of flowers by Mrs Leonie Burr.