(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa woman was recently chosen to represent the United States in an international program with Japan. Maddie McGarry was named the U-S Cherry Blossom Queen at the National Conference of State Cherry Blossom Societies in Washington, D-C. “And it’s really a program that helps to kind of celebrate that ongoing friendship that’s endured and kind of stood the test of time,” she says. Women from 19 to 24 years old are selected by their based on their academic achievement, leadership qualities, and general interest in world affairs. “And so we get to undergo a lot of leadership and professional development activities throughout the week. And we also have a lot of hands on experience with learning more about Japanese culture,” McGarry says. “And we also learned about the culture and other countries that have kind of been part of this program for decades now, including Taiwan and Lithuania.”

The program itself started in 1930 and this is the 75th anniversary of the first queen selection. “There hasn’t actually been an Iowa delegate that was selected as the queen since 1964. So it’s really awesome to kind of get my home state of Iowa into the spotlight through this unique and really sacred program,” McGary says. McGary is a DeWitt native who graduated from Ames High School and now lives in Jewell. She says Iowa’s lack of Cherry Blossom Queens has simply been a matter of bad luck — as the winner is chosen randomly by the spin of a big wheel that has all the names of states on it. “They really don’t want it to be a competition because they want everyone involved to be focused more on the substance of the program, and less on you know, trying to elevate themselves or increase their odds of winning. It’s supposed to be more of a leadership program,” McGary says. She says that really distinguishes it from pageants.

“I really valued that it was not a competition, I think it made it a lot more enjoyable, and I know, one of the biggest things I walked away from with this experience was just the number of friendships that I cultivated throughout my time,” according to McGary. “It was a very short amount of time and me and it was only a week and our days were pretty long and filled with a lot of activities. But all of us have been very grateful to be able to walk away from this with lifelong friendships and new connections.” While the its not a pageant — becoming the Cherry Blossom Queen does have some of the same trappings — including a massive crown. The crown was made by the by the Mikimoto Pearl company in Japan. “So it’s made of two pounds of 14 karat gold. And there’s about 15-hundred pearls that adorn the crown that were actually hand selected by Mr. Mikimoto himself. So it’s a really unique history and awesome that they’ve been able to preserve it for this long,” she says.

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McGary got to wear the crown for a picture at the coronation after she was chosen, but says it is so valuable that she will likely not get to wear it again. “The crown actually had its own security detail when we were at the gala. So it had to be guarded all night. I wasn’t actually allowed to move when I was standing there because it can actually fall off your head, it’s so heavy. So that was crazy,” McGary says. She was given a smaller crown to wear to events that is made of gold, but is lighter and also has Mikimoto pearls on it. It’s tradition for the new queen to travel to Japan, so she will leave in early June for a two week trip. She’ll get to meet with the Prime Minister of Japan, the mayor of Tokyo and a few other government officials in Japan.

MacGary studied agricultural communications and international agriculture at Iowa State University where she says she learned about the importance of trade with Japan. She later got a masters degree from Oklahoma State and worked for Senator Ernst as her Deputy Press Secretary. McGary currently works for Barn Tools in Des Moines that creates barn monitoring technology that’s wireless for swine and poultry growers.