Meet Miss Blueberry 2023 of the Marshall County Blueberry Festival

PLYMOUTH, Ind. -- Preparations are underway for the 57th annual Marshall County Blueberry Festival, and one young lady has already been making a difference in her community this summer, all in the name of blueberries.

Cheyenne Hawley was crowned Miss Blueberry on June 17. She is part of a five-member Queen's Court that will be present throughout the festival.

Outside of promoting the festival, she is active in her local and state FFA, and she shows horses and pigs at the Marshall County Fair. Miss Blueberry is a junior at Triton Junior Senior High School.

Hawley has grown up attending the Blueberry Festival in the summertime.

"I don't remember a year I didn't come to the festival," she explained. "It's just something that was rooted in my family, and I'm really proud of it."

Despite that, she says she didn't know she would one day aspire to be the festival's queen.

"My younger self actually probably wanted to be Blueberry Hank more than Blueberry Queen," she joked.

Goofiness aside, the pageant's director, Leanne Senter, knows she will make a great representative.

"I don't think she has ever met a stranger. I think she's very outgoing," Senter described. "She's just got it all together."

Over the Labor Day weekend festival, you'll see Hawley and her court attending all the events, greeting kids, and riding in style in her very own golf cart.

Later this fall, Hawley will represent the festival at the Indiana State Festivals Association Queen Scholarship Pageant in November.

After she graduates, she plans to use the scholarship money from Miss Blueberry to pursue a degree in agronomy.