Emily Moore Patterson, 2010 Apple Festival Ambassador.
Emily Moore Patterson says she didn’t expect to win the title of 2010 Apple Festival Ambassador.
The Apple Ambassador program is an annual scholarship competition, and it’s pretty tough. As part of the selection process, Apple Festival board members asked some challenging questions, “many of which I didn’t expect,” says Emily. But whatever she said, it must have been convincing. “I found out that same night. I was really, really surprised!”
Emily, the daughter of Jeff and Tami Patterson, will be a senior this semester at Hendersonville Christian School. One reason she decided to apply was the chance to win the $2,000 Evelyn Lutz Hill Memorial Scholarship, named in honor of the community-service-minded woman who was about to assume the presidency of the Apple Festival in 2004, but passed away as the event was being organized.
“It was a major incentive, because I’ll be attending Converse College in Spartanburg and hope to someday be able to work with the deaf and hard of hearing,” she says.
Emily also got the inside scoop on what’s expected of an Apple Ambassador: “One of my friends (Colby Creasman) was last year’s ambassador, and she’d already told me a lot about what to expect.”
Her final Festival appearance will be on the last float in the King Apple Parade on Labor Day. “It’s certainly not a four-day position,” Emily says. “I’ve already attended a lot of events — and I’ll be going as (Apple) Ambassador to the Mountain State Fair (September 10-19 at the WNC Ag Center in Fletcher); then, I will be the guest speaker at the apple growers banquet in January… it’s ongoing.”
When she’s not ambassadoring-it, Emily still attends and now teaches dance classes at Pat’s School of Dance in Hendersonville, and is active with her church, Berea Baptist Church.
Another clue about why Emily was chosen came during the phone interview, when she was asked if she liked apples: After describing her love affair with apple pies, she says, “In fact, I’m eating applesauce right now!”
