Royalty contestants near the end of a month of hard work

It's been an adventure for Alisha Armstrong and Kayla Young, who both stepped up at the last minute to become candidates in this year's Fourth of July royalty contest, selling raffle tickets and food at booths in the downtown pavilion.

They have been working for more than a month to raise money for the town's holiday celebration.

Armstrong graduated high school last month and Young will be a senior this fall. They have worked on donation lists, sponsorship letters, menus, events and gathered volunteers. It's the first time in several years that Wrangell had more than one fundraising candidate.

What has made the experience doubly challenging for Armstrong is fitting the contest activities around her job as a barista at the Stikine Inn. "I just think it's been exhausting as a whole," she said. "You know, you're selling tickets, you're selling food, you're doing activities. Just a lot of things, and I'm working on top of it."

Her days sometimes start at 5 a.m. at the Stik and then she'll finish her work at the food booth at 10 or 11 p.m. "It's only a month, though," she added.

Armstrong said the exhaustion could sometimes be amusing. "When it gets late, and you're trying to take people's orders and like, 'I'm so sorry, can you say that again?' I think that's pretty funny."

Young has enjoyed the chance to spend more time with her family while working at the booth. "It's been really family-oriented and nice to hang out with my great-uncle and my grandparents."

For Armstrong, one of the best parts of participating in the contest was the chance to just talk with people. "Especially the older community who have been around longer and seen many Fourth of Julys," she said.

One memorable incident for Young was on her first day in the booth when she accidentally started a fire in a small trash can before she quickly moved it outside and extinguished it with a bag of salt. "I was freaking out," she said with a laugh.

Another challenge for the contestants was menu preparation. "It's actually really hard," Armstrong said. "We've had lots of menu changes. We've had a set menu, but sometimes you can't find that one thing in town."

She talked about one day when her booth was supposed to have fish tacos, but the frozen fish wasn't fully thawed out and they had to adjust. But it all worked out - they used the fish for seafood dishes the next day, when there were three cruise ships in town.

Young said her day-to-day menu preparation was "crazy." She generally starts getting everything ready from 8 to 10:30 a.m. As her family owns J&W's, she also sold some dinners and late-night food at the restaurant in addition to her lunches at the booth. "Every day's a little different with our specials and stuff."

She felt she learned a lot about business in the past month. "I've been doing most of this, the food ordering, getting everything out every day, and making sure you have enough food," she said. "Really understanding the money side of it."

Armstrong observed that one of the best things about competing in the royalty contest is finding unexpected common ground with former royalty contestants. "A lot of people in this town have run already, and so when you go to their house, or they come to the booth, or they buy tickets from you, they know what you're going through at the same time," she said. "I think that's pretty cool. Running for queen is almost a community in itself."

First prize for the raffle, organized by the chamber of commerce, is $2,500, second is $1,500 and third prize is $1,000. The winning raffle tickets will be drawn after the parade on July 4. The candidate with the highest gross revenue will win the royalty competition. Any candidate who raises over $50,000 will receive a bonus totaling 30% of their net profits. In years past, bonuses have been based solely on ticket sales.

Both Young and Armstrong are planning to put their earnings toward college.