Lincoln Czech Festival - The First of the Farewells

Well...as I said in my title this was the first of my farewells this year. Not to the people, or events, or the memories but to my title as the current queen. I can't believe that my journey as a Czech-Slovak queen started 6 years ago at the 2004 Lincoln Czech Festival where I was crowed the 2004 Lincoln Czech-Slovak queen. I was so excited to represent all of the Czech and Slovak people in Lincoln and have continued to do this...crown or no crown....ever since.

This year I have taken over the membership committee, newsletter committee, the festival vendor committee, and helped with the accordion jam. This made for a busy few months getting ready for the festival. I've had fun learning to work on all of these things and look forward to continuing and growing in these committees.

As it was in previous years...it was going to be a busy day.

I started by singing the US and Czech national anthems. I still want to learn the Slovak national anthem so I can sing it but since I couldn't sing it I settled for playing it after the Czech national anthem.

Next was the first of the 2 accordion jams for the day. I played for a while and tried to see everyone who had come to the festival from out of town or even out of state.

This year I had the idea to start a booth for polka CDs. (I figured with my idea and Brad's connections with artists it would be fun for people to have one way of getting a hold of a variety of different CDs and have them available in one place for everyone to buy.) I did my best to spend time at the booth but it was hard with so many things going on. I can't thanks Sandy and her parents enough for helping out when I couldn't be around the booth. Brad even sold one AUTOGRAPHED copy of his CD. :) To a princess no less! The Omaha Princess asked him to autograph her CD after she got her own copy instead of having to borrow her grandparents or aunt's all the time.

Next event I was part of was the farewell of the 2009 Royalty, Introductions of Chapter Queens, and 2010 Coronation. I tried to be tricky and about 5 mins before this started I changed my crown and sash back to my "2009 Lincoln Czech-Slovak Queen" gear. :) First they introduced the 2009 royalty but unfortunately my prince and princess weren't there. I gave a few words for my farewell thanking the special people in the club who have helped me so much. Next they went to introduce the 2009-10 Nebraska Czech-Slovak queen. I hid behind all the other girls and they held their hands up so I could quickly change my crown and sash back to my Nebraska stuff then popped up from behind them. We all got a good laugh about it. I introduced each of the chapter royalty and a few from the national court. Then it was crowning time! I was excited to crown Marie and get her started in her year as queen. She found out about all of this as my aunt and mom were buying fabric for my kroj. Mom got her info and I emailed her then met her for coffee one evening and we talked about it. I was so happy when she decided to run! The new prince and princess were pretty special to me also as they rode through a few parades with me when my prince and princess couldn't be there. Blaze and Blair are also going to be wonderful representatives of the Lincoln Club!

Mom switched up the program and had all of the royalty play musical chairs. She may not do this next year as crowns can hurt if you headbutt people and kroj is delicate...luckily no serious injuries or kroj ruined in the making of this blog. HAHA!

Next we were supposed to have a beginners accordion jam but only one person showed up for it. We ended up having Shayla come up later and Shandra, Brad, and I played along with her. I love seeing the younger generations playing!! :)

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon at the CD booth and came back up at the end to play in the 2nd accordion jam for a while. I was excited to almost be the owner of a 2nd accordion by that time! Yea...a 2nd accordion...a Kuchar no less! When I got to the festival I walked around to thank each of the vendors for coming and being a part of our day. When I got to the dumpling demo that the NE Czechs of York took over this year...there was a BEAUTIFUL ivory...SQUARE BUTTON...Kuchar sitting next to their table with a sign that said "For Sale" I couldn't' believe my eyes! I told them they may as well put it away because either Brad or I was gonna buy it before the end of the day. About 20 mins later Brad got there and no more than 5 mins later came to me and said "Oh my gosh did you see that accordion?!?!" I told him I had and what I told them. We immediately went over and asked them if we could put it behind the table. When my dad got to the festival I told him about it and asked him..."So how is the farm account doing?" LOL! He wrote a check to Franklin before the end of the day and now I have 2 square key beauties! Next is getting new straps for it because it is heavier because it has shifts and the straps aren't very padded. Now I need to start practicing more! (In my free time! HA!)

As always it was an awesome day and I look forward to next year!

Spanem Bohem!
Stefanie Vocasek
2009-10 Nebraska Czech-Slovak Queen