WASHINGTON ¨C Adjusting her cupcake-size replica of a Mikimoto gold-and-pearl crown and gliding through a downtown Washington hotel lobby in her white sash, Taylor Barfield offers her business card with a knowing grin: ¡°First African-American United States Cherry Blossom Queen,¡± it reads.
¡°Sorry if I¡¯m groggy and my voice is hoarse, it¡¯s been nonstop,¡± laughs last year¡¯s queen, a 19-year-old sophomore at Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland.
In her final week of duty, she¡¯s had a schedule packed with as many as 12 hours of events every day in Washington ¡ª including the Japanese stone-lantern lighting at the blossom-fringed Tidal Basin, sorting donated clothing at the Bread for the City charity and reading to students at Cleveland Elementary School.
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