Tiger Stadium roared without restriction as mass communication senior Claudia Henry and sports administration senior Chandler Black were crowned as Homecoming King and Queen during halftime of the Florida game Saturday.
After a week of Homecoming events leading up to the football game, from the Homecoming concert featuring Swae Lee to Fall Fest, both Henry and Black said the event represented a return to normalcy.
“I know last year’s king and queen didn’t really get the full experience,” Henry said. “It was so crazy looking up at a full Tiger Stadium. Things are moving forward.”
The king and queen were determined by a vote of the student body. They were named out of a court of six seniors and eight freshmen, sophomores and graduate students. Both students said they are honored to represent LSU as Homecoming royalty but pointed to their extracurricular activities as their most impactful endeavors during their time at the university.
“I got pushed to do more as a leader throughout Student Government,” Black said. “Leadership is a person-to-person thing. It’s impacted me greatly and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Black, a native of Lawrenceville, Georgia, has served in SG since he was a freshman. He currently serves as the Chief of Staff and was previously the assistant director of Athletics, director of Student Outreach and part of the Freshman Leadership Council. In addition to serving in SG, Black has worked with The BRidge Agency, a nonprofit organization that supports community and economic development in low-income areas of Baton Rouge. In Georgia, he has volunteered for Toys for Tots and as a youth coach.
Henry has been a member of the Delta Gamma sorority since her freshman year and served as president of the Panhellenic Council and on the Greek Board of Directors. She also joined LSU Ambassadors her freshman year and said the organization gave her a great appreciation for the campus and the diversity of the student body.
Through her sorority, she has done volunteer work with the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired and the Miracle League of Baton Rouge. She and other members assist blind students by walking with them around campus or driving them where they need to go.
She credits her sorority sisters with encouraging her to get involved in areas of campus life outside of her sorority.
“It’s a community of amazing, supportive women who only want you to do your best,” Henry said. “The women in my sorority always saw things in me I didn’t see in myself.”
Both students credited their parents with supporting them in their extracurricular activities throughout their lives. Henry, a native of Alexandria who attended high school in Denham Springs, said she initially was hesitant to go to LSU because of its close proximity to home, but her mother encouraged her to change her attitude.
After graduation, Black plans to attend graduate school and get his master’s in business administration, potentially at LSU or back home in Georgia.
Henry will take a gap year and hopes to travel internationally and learn about other cultures. She plans to eventually attend graduate school and is considering law school.
Henry and Black both stressed that every student has the power to make a difference at the university, whether they are from Louisiana, another state or another country.
“You can have an impact on campus regardless of where you come from,” Black said. “If you make the life easier of one person on campus, you succeeded in leadership and leaving a legacy here at LSU.”
