WFFJ-TV

By: David Deschesne
Fort Fairfield Journal, July 23, 2025, page 1

The 2025 Maine Potato Blossom Festival concluded last weekend with many new events, a gigantic parade down Main Street and three new queens as the crown jewels of the event.

The Little/Jr. Miss pageant was held on Wednesday evening at the Fort Fairfield Middle/High School gym with five participants in both divisions.

The Little Miss division featured Jayli Morrison, Raelynn Closson, Gabrielle DeFelice, Skylaya Darrell and Rosalind Supa.

Miss Congeniality, voted on by the young ladies, was Little Miss Presque Isle, Rosalind Supa. First runner-up was Little Miss Mapleton, Skylaya Darrell and the winner was Little Miss Caribou, Gabrielle DeFelice.

The Little Miss Maine Potato Queen pageant was directed by former Maine Potato Queen, Chloe Wheeler.

The Jr. Miss Maine Potato Queen pageant was held concomitantly with the Little Miss.
Contestants for the Jr. Miss were: Josie Adams, Natalie Putnam, Charlotte Wardwell, Eloise Adams, and Tiarrah Saucier.

Miss Congeniality was Jr. Miss Mapleton, Charlotte Wardwell. The First Runner-up was Jr. Miss Caribou, Tiarrah Saucier and the winner was Jr. Miss Fort Fairfield, Josie Adams.

Adams performed a self-composed monologue with a very different theme from all other monologues performed at the Maine Potato Queen pageants that this writer has been involved with over the past forty years. Her monologue was entitled “What it’s Like to be Me,” where she described what her daily life is like with autism and ADHD.

During her on-stage interview at the Miss Pageant, three days later, Josie explained the premise of her winning monologue; “This is a monologue I wrote about my struggles and things I experienced as a person with autism and ADHD. I think that both of those conditions are very, very misunderstood. It's something a lot of people hear about, they say, ‘you don't look autistic - you can do this, you can do that.’ Autism is not a limitation. As you'll see in my monologue, there are certain things that I feel limited by but I have other abilities that I think being autistic increases for me. I also try to help people who have higher support needs because everyone on the spectrum born with ADHD deserves respect and deserves to be represented.”