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The honoree chosen for this year’s Taylors Falls Royal Lady has upped the ante for all the subsequent ladies who might be considered in the future.  It’s truly a sign-of-the-times, that you now can add tekkie to what a Royal Lady brings to the table.

The criteria for choosing a Lighting Festival Royal Lady has generally required  someone involved in town lighting festival tasks, and who has contributed to other city and civic causes.  Royal Lady honorees also must be  exceptional neighbors, school boosters, or local business owners, talented and resourceful.  

But what this weekend’s Royal Lady Julie Hildebrand has a knack for, is some serious technological know-how.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, websites...they are all part of what the  resume-worthy Royal Lady of the 21st century has to offer.

Hildebrand finds the electronic communications buffet a useful tool in following through on the activism she’s known for.  She instigated on-line anti-sand trucking petitions and sparked e mail campaigns bringing locals together to fight a planned bridge closure.  

She blogs at dishingitoutinthevalley.com.

She is the first Royal Lady who can be credited with putting the lighting festival out there electronically and overseeing that presence on social media;  made possible through her website design business WebPlus.

Yet, for Hildebrand technology and the internet  take a backseat to personal community connections and relationships.

When Hildebrand moved to town she got involved in the lighting festival parade as a chauffer for Mrs Claus in her little convertible car.  She sings in the choral vespers performance at the historic Methodist Church during the festival.  

She chairs the Heritage Preservation Committee  and is in her second year heading-up the multi-member Lighting Festival Committee...which is actually not hard to do, she noted,  because, “They’re a great group of people, so well organized, I never would have gotten involved if they hadn’t already put together such a great festival.”  

All her adult life Hildebrand has been about rolling-up-your-sleeves and building community and opposing those forces that tear down communities.  
Before moving to Taylors Falls in 2008, she was active in establishing the Arnell Memorial Humane Society in west Wisconsin and worked for a time with the river association. She coordinated a St Croix Falls buy local campaign working with businesses through a VISTA program.  

“If it affects my community I key into it,” she explains.  

Her philosophy is it’s better to influence outcomes acting as a non-elected person.   Holding office, she explained,  you have to be aware of open meeting constrictions and appeasing the electorate.
 
For her personally, “Working outside of government is more effective.”

Hildebrand, 57,  grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where she recalls there being many historic Greek Revival-style homes;  so of course she’d end up in Taylors Falls with its familiar classic ambience.  Plus, her husband, Terry, always wanted to live in a rivertown and when they decided to move in-town after being in the country in west Wisconsin,  they felt super lucky to find the “Thomas Lacy House” for sale in T.F.’s historic Angel Hill District.

For Hildebrand, being Royal Lady is sure to be a little embarrassing, but great fun.   Her main concern is that there won’t be enough time to be the guest of honor while also playing host.  It’s up to Lighting Festival committee members to make sure the many public events November 28, 29 and 30 go-off without a hitch.  And, this year Taylors Falls’ fire department’s 100th anniversary is being recognized with additional special demonstrations and events.  

Hildebrand frets that the posting of medallion hunt clues could be delayed leaving searchers standing about;  or models of firetrucks made by the TF third graders might not make it to the one room TownHouse School display.  She wonders about introducing a poetry slam,  at The Eye performance space, and how that will go.  Plus, this year there’s bellydancers in the parade and she’ll be at the front of the line, as Royal Lady, and might not get to see them.

Come to Taylors Falls to see for yourself how everything comes together. There’s a schedule of events and more details inside.

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