Apple Blossom 2025

Bigfoot Crashes the Blossoms: Sasquatch Syndicate at the 2025 Washington State Apple Blossom Festival

There's something almost poetic about Bigfoot showing up at an apple blossom parade.  The Washington State Apple Blossom Festival is one of the oldest, proudest, most beloved traditions in the Pacific Northwest — a celebration of this region's identity, its heritage, its fruit-growing soul, and its people. And the Sasquatch Syndicate? We're about another Pacific Northwest tradition. One that's a little hairier, a little harder to photograph, and considerably more controversial at the dinner table.

But Wenatchee, Washington is our home. This is our state. And when Stemilt — one of the most respected names in Washington agriculture — put their name on the Grand Parade banner for the 107th Apple Blossom Festival, we knew this was exactly where we needed to be.

So we showed up. Trucks, suits, speakers, and all.

The 107th Festival: A Wenatchee Tradition Like No Other
If you've never been to the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival, let us paint you a picture. Every spring since 1920, the Wenatchee Valley transforms into something magical. What began as a single-day celebration has grown into an eleven-day affair encompassing a carnival, golf tournament, food fair, multiple parades, an arts and crafts fair, live entertainment at Memorial Park, and countless other festivities that draw visitors from across the state and beyond.
As the oldest major festival in the state of Washington, Apple Blossom is a family-oriented celebration showcasing the people, heritage, and fruit industry of the region — and it shows. Walking through Wenatchee during festival week, you feel the weight of over a century of community pride in every marching band, every float, every face lining the streets.

The 107th Stemilt Grand Parade kicked off at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 3rd, with a cannon blast echoing across the valley like a starter pistol for the most glorious day of the Wenatchee year. The route launched from Triangle Park, wound down Orondo, turned left on Wenatchee Avenue, and ended at Seventh Street — approximately a mile and a half of cheering crowds, marching bands, floats, and fanfare.

And somewhere in that parade, sandwiched between the royalty queens and the high school marching bands, there was a very large, very hairy creature walking down the middle of the street at five miles per hour — flanked by two very serious research vehicles.

Enter the Sasquatch Syndicate. The Sasquatch Syndicate came prepared.
Our two research vehicles — the Toyota Tundra and the Chevy HHR — were outfitted and rolling, representing the organization proudly as we joined one of Washington State's most storied parades. But the real star of the show was neither truck.

It was Dawayne Zazeski. In full Bigfoot regalia.

Dawayne walked the entire parade route — all approximately two miles of it, at the stately pace of five miles per hour — dressed head to toe as the very creature our organization exists to research and document. And while we had the distinct advantage of air conditioning inside the vehicles, Dawayne had... none of that. What he had was a full fur suit, the enthusiasm of a true believer, and enough determination to power through the whole route despite the kind of internal heat situation that can only be described as a personal rain forest.

In fairness, the weather cooperated — it was cooler than it could have been, and we are deeply grateful to the Pacific Northwest climate for that small mercy. Dawayne is less convinced. He emerged from that costume at the finish line looking like he'd just completed a marathon inside a sauna. A heroic, magnificent, deeply committed marathon.

He earned every round of applause he got. And he got a lot of them.

The Loudspeaker That Changed Everything
Here's the detail that took the whole thing to another level: we ran a loudspeaker broadcasting authentic Washington State Sasquatch calls along the entire route.

If you've never heard a genuine Sasquatch vocalization played at parade volume through downtown Wenatchee, Washington while a man in a Bigfoot suit waves at children — we genuinely cannot recommend it highly enough as a life experience.

The reaction from the crowd was immediate and unforgettable. People who had been pleasantly watching the parade go by suddenly snapped to attention. Heads turned. Eyes widened. Kids grabbed their parents' arms. And then — when they saw Dawayne lumbering down the street in character, massive and magnificent against the backdrop of the Cascade Mountains — they absolutely lost it in the best possible way.

The calls, the costume, the trucks — together it created this immersive, totally unexpected moment in the middle of a traditional community parade that made people feel something. Curiosity. Excitement. Delight. And for a few of them, maybe just a tiny flicker of what if?  That's what we're here for.

The Kids. The High Fives. The Chaos.  We have to talk about the kids.
Children, it turns out, have exactly zero fear of a friendly Bigfoot walking toward them at a parade. If anything, they interpreted Dawayne's appearance as an open invitation.   As he made his way down the route, kids kept breaking from the crowd — arms outstretched, running in for high fives like Dawayne was a beloved mascot rather than a cryptid of disputed existence. The screams of excitement. The little legs sprinting. The parents simultaneously alarmed and delighted. It was pure, unfiltered joy, and it encapsulated everything we love about bringing this kind of energy to a family event.  Dawayne, to his enormous credit, delivered every single high five. Every one. In a full fur suit. At two miles. In the parade.

This man is a legend. Possibly more than one kind.

Why Apple Blossom Mattered for Sasquatch Syndicate
There are events where you go to reach a new audience, and there are events where you go to come home. The Washington State Apple Blossom Festival was both.

This is our state. These are our mountains. The forests that Sasquatch Syndicate researchers comb through for evidence of Pacific Northwest cryptids are the same forests that frame the Wenatchee skyline during festival week. There is no more fitting place for us to plant our flag and say: we are a Washington organization, we take this seriously, and we want you to share your stories with us.

Chuck Geveshausen and the Sasquatch Syndicate team were out there to do exactly that — promote the cause, engage the community, and remind the people of our home state that the search is real, it's ongoing, and it belongs to all of us.

The reception was extraordinary. Festival goers who stopped to talk were genuinely curious. Longtime residents of the Wenatchee Valley — surrounded by some of the most Bigfoot-adjacent wilderness in the entire country — had stories. Personal stories. Experiences passed down through families. Moments from hunting trips and camping nights that they hadn't talked about publicly in years.

Stemilt's Grand Parade gave us a platform, and the community gave us something back: connection, conversation, and confirmation that the Pacific Northwest is very much still paying attention to what moves through its forests at night.

The Sasquatch Came to Town — and the Town Was Ready
The Apple Blossom Festival offered everything from carnival rides to a beer garden, live music on the GESA Credit Union Entertainment Stage, an arts and crafts fair, and food vendors from across the region — and through all of it, the Sasquatch Syndicate was there, waving our flag and carrying the cause into the heart of Washington State.

We marched in one of the most beloved parades in the Pacific Northwest. We played Sasquatch calls loud enough for the whole valley to hear. We put a man in a Bigfoot suit through a genuinely heroic physical ordeal in service of the mission. And we connected with Wenatchee in a way that felt authentic, fun, and deeply right.

This is home. The mountains are ours. The forests are ours. And Bigfoot — whatever he is, wherever he roams — belongs to this land and to the people who live on it.

We'll be back.
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The search continues.

By Chanelle Elaine, Chief Marketing Officer, Sasquatch Syndicate Inc.