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Date: 2/15/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — When the West Side float rolls through the streets of Holyoke for this year’s parade, Madison Douglas is going to feel very proud, and not just because it represents her hometown.
Her float design was selected by the West Springfield St. Patrick’s Committee from 76 entries submitted by West Springfield Middle School students. Douglas is the seventh student to win the annual design contest open only to the school’s nearly 300 eighth graders.
“It was quite a process looking at the different designs,” said Chris Thompson, who chairs the float-building subcommittee. “There are some very talented eighth graders. Madison’s design stood out immediately and was one of our top 10 finalists.”
He added that the contest is limited to eighth graders because they’re at the age where they have a lot of creativity.
“One of my other goals with this contest is to get students involved so they will want to be part of the parade committee when they get older,” he added. “They’re our future.”
Douglas said she was “really excited” when called to the principal’s office one day and told her design had won: “This is pretty huge for me. I don’t remember having something this big happen. I won an award in fifth grade, but it was nowhere near as big a deal as this.”
Art has been one of her favorite pastimes most of her life. “I find it always relaxes me and helps reduce my stress.” She’s also considering a career in the art field, perhaps even designing her own clothing line.
“Winning this design contest is going to help me with my career when I decide what I want to do,” she said.
Working with the committee’s criteria, Douglas had some ideas even before she put pencil to paper.
“When I saw the theme, an idea just came to me. I was like, OK, this should be easy,” she said.
She loves making fairytale, whimsical drawings, and it took just one try to get her vision on paper.
“It took me one day to make the entire sketch and then another to do the coloring and to fully finish it,” she recalled.
Unlike many design contests. Douglas also has had the opportunity to help make her design a reality. Like past contest winners, she was invited to assist the subcommittee and has been working with them a few nights a week and on Saturdays since mid-January.
“It’s a short window between the time we select the design to parade day,” explained Thompson. “Everybody working on the float does it part-time.”
Douglas is part of the six- to eight-person crew building the float on the grounds of the Big E. Thompson said even colleens will be stopping by to help. He added that when the float is finished, they will have put in about 2,000 man-hours.
Douglas said it’s been exciting to see her design come to life: “It means a lot to me. And I’m happy that I can help and be part of the team.”
Because of “top secret” competitiveness among local St. Patrick’s committees to win awards from parade judges, neither Douglas nor Thompson could share specifics about the float’s design elements.
Douglas, who has mostly Scottish and some Irish heritage, said she has no regrets about her design.
“I can’t say I wish I had scrapped one of my ideas and switched it for something a little bit more Irish,” she said.
Thompson said her design is “very detailed, right down to little elements,” and “hit all the metrics” given to students in the contest guidelines.
“We have a lot of people on the committee who are very proud of her design and very happy about it,” he said. “The willingness to build this design is pretty high.”
Thompson explained that the committee uses Douglas’ design as a “rough” starting point. He said one of the elements Douglas selected in her paper design had to be changed to a different element.
“We’re teaching Madison all phases of going through design to conception to completion. Where changes are made, we discuss them,” he said. “That’s part of the teaching process.”
Thompson said he always expects minor changes to student designs. “It teaches them what it’s like to go from paper to reality, and what’s involved with the process when changes are made, and stuff like that.”
He said Douglas is gaining a lot of useful knowledge, building camaraderie and getting a sense of ownership through the process.
“She’s also making memories that will last a lifetime,” he said.
Douglas said it’s been “magical” watching her design go from a two-dimensional, 8½- by 11-inch sheet of paper to a three-dimensional physical structure that will measure 143 feet long and nearly nine feet wide.
“I didn’t expect anything like this to happen to me, or that my design would actually become something this big,” she said. “After I made the design, I didn’t think much about it. I never thought they would pick my design.”
Douglas also will be walking in the parade, either behind or in front of the float. During television coverage, Thompson said the camera will do a close-up of the float and the announcer will read a brief biography of Douglas as its designer.
The 13-year said she has been trying to imagine how she will feel when she actually sees the large float she designed in the parade on the streets of Holyoke.
“I get excited just imagining what it will be like — it’s overwhelming. I’m very proud of what I accomplished. I’ll be very happy if the float wins any award.”