This Friday at 5 p.m., the Flood Mud Queen Pageant will celebrate Teton Dam Flood survivors in the Beehive Pavilion at Porter Park.  

According to a press release, the pageant is celebrating women who survived the Teton Dam Flood including Verla Archibald, Anna Harris Bjornn and Jacki Sare.

Raymonda Furness, a retired food editor for the Rexburg Standard Journal, will be judging the pageant.

Patricia Hepworth, a flood survivor, helped organize the event. Hepworth, fellow flood survivors and neighbours would meet annually for a picnic in commemoration, making the pageant an amusing addition every 10 years according to Natalia Dyer, Hepworth's granddaughter. The coronation included a program where they crowned a Flood Mud queen. As life grew busy and bodies aged, they chose to expand their celebration to the public for the first time this year.

Hepworth reported that she sees the pageant as an opportunity for the community to laugh while honoring the challenges people faced from the flood.

“I have to look at this pageant a little bit as a service that we can look back [on] and find some humor in,” Hepworth said. 

The prized crown takes the form of a bucket decorated with sponges and American memorabilia.

“People were able to laugh, and that's honestly what got us here, in the sense of community and going and talking to each other and caring for each other,” said Hepworth.

Hepworth hopes the Flood Mud Queen Pageant will be something people remember fondly.

“If we can make this cute and fun and entertaining, then I feel we have succeeded," Hepworth said.