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The first time Payton Snider went to the North Carolina Apple Festival she was just a little girl.
This year, the rising senior at West Henderson High School will arrive at the festival as its 2022 Apple Ambassador.
Though the festival is a few weeks away, Snider is eager to get to work on her ambassador duties. She has already started public outreach and relations within the Hendersonville community.
“The Apple Festival starting has given me so many opportunities and has helped me especially with public speaking and things like that,” she said.
Snider began thinking about the possibility of becoming Apple Ambassador about a year ago.
At last year’s festival, she noticed the Apple Ambassador preparing to ride a float and greet the throng lining Main Street for the King Apple Parade.
“I thought to myself, that’s something that I would want to do. So, right after I got home, I searched up and figured out some of the background of it,” Snider said. “I realized applications would come out the following couple months.”
Although her family has no history of apple growing or working in orchards, Snider felt drawn to the role as a chance to give back to her community.
“I’ll go around to a lot of booths and talk to a lot of apple growers, and just a lot of people in the community too,” she said.
The daughter of Darby and Cassie Snider, Snider plans to use the $2,000 scholarship she won by becoming Apple Ambassador to study elementary education. As a part of her apple industry ambassadorship, she hopes to meet with children in schools to raise awareness about the festival’s varying activities.
“I babysit for a lot of families in my neighborhood regularly, especially in the summer,” she says. “I just love kids, and it will be a chance to interact with them.”
Snider is also a member of West Henderson’s cheerleading team, among other club organizations. Her involvement may have helped her application stand out to the selection committee.
“I feel like I definitely had a lot more roles,” she says. “I guess I kind of had a little bit of a spark to be the Apple Ambassador.”
The 76th North Carolina Apple Festival will be held in Hendersonville over Labor Day weekend Sept. 2 through Sept. 5.