Digby Scallop Days breaks from Apple Blossom tradition over 'archaic' rules
Organizers with Digby Scallop Days say they'll no longer be a part of the Apple Blossom Festival competition because the requirements are too limiting for women who want to participate.
The entry rules for the Annapolis Valley Apple Blossom Festival's leadership competition — the choosing of Queen Annapolisa and her princesses — was recently changed to allow participants to live common law and to become pregnant during the year they represent their community.
Married women and young women with children are still not permitted to take part.
Dale Kearney, the chairman of Digby Scallop Days, said the revised rules are good but don't go far enough — so Digby will now host its own Scallop Days Queen competition with new rules created about a month ago.
"We looked at the rules and they were so old and archaic," he said, speaking of the Apple Blossom Festival.
"They left a lot of girls out. So, we changed our rules about a month ago to allow pregnant people, and you could have children."
Along with other local community festivals in Nova Scotia, a princess is typically nominated for Digby Scallop Days. Then the organizers pay for the newly-crowned princess to be sent to the Apple Blossom Festival to compete for the title of Queen Annapolisa.
While they'll still participate in the overall Annapolis Valley festival, Kearney said the Digby Scallop Days board members agreed it was time to modernize and move away from the traditional Apple Blossom competition.
'You can have children, you can have a boyfriend'
Kearney said the decision was made to allow their festival "to be more with the times." He said the main bone of contention between festivals was that Queen Annapolisa hopefuls couldn't already have children.
"The old rules were that you had to be 18 years old, in Grade 12 and going into post-secondary education, not married, no children, no boyfriend or fiance," he said.
"So we changed our rules this year to 17 to 20, you don't have to be going into post-secondary education, you can have children, you can have a boyfriend."
Kearney said the only unchanged rule is that would-be princesses can't be married. He said they're hoping to remain progressive in the future.
"It's like I told our board — if some girl came up and applied and she had a child and they said, 'No,' she could go right to the Human Rights Commission and say, 'Listen, they're denying me applying for a pageant because I have a child,'" he said.
The next Digby Scallop Days will be held from Aug. 7 to Aug. 9. According to its website, the Scallop Days Queen will be crowned on the first day of the festival.
