Imagine more than 90,000 fans screaming, while standing in the middle of Tiger Stadium as the name of the new homecoming king and queen are called.
These thoughts are filling the minds of the latest contenders for the new 2003 LSU royalty.
The road to becoming homecoming royalty has changed in the past 30 years. Where there once was only queens now there are kings. There were not any kings until the mid-1990s.
Where there once was a beauty contest, there now is a contest of who can be involved in the most organizations and know the most about recent events.
Rebecca Williams, the former 1970 LSU homecoming queen and then “Becky White” remembers a vastly different road she traveled to become homecoming queen.
Back then, she was nominated by her sorority, Chi Omega, and she did not expect to get on court at all, she said.
“They just decided to nominate me,” she said.
Then, out of the 25 young women nominated, the football players picked five finalists.
“All the football players sat in a room and we had to parade around in front of them,” said Williams, who went on to marry singer/songwriter Hank Williams Jr.
She feels that the fact she was dating a football player, Tommy Casanova, was one of the reasons she was picked as one of the finalists.
Then, after the five finalists were chosen their pictures were posted in the student center for all the students to come and vote on homecoming queen.
“It was a miracle I made it,” Williams said.
She said there was no interview or talent “thing” like there was in the Farm Bureau beauty pageants she was in. She simply paraded around football players and got her picture taken for the school to look at and make their decisions.
“It was very simple back then,” she said. “All it was based on was how good your picture was. My picture flattered me a whole lot.”
Now, candidates must use their utmost creativity to become the next homecoming king or queen.
Mark Higgins, 2002’s homecoming king, said he did nothing in particular to prepare himself to be the next homecoming king, but just did everything he always wanted to do at LSU.
He said everything he has done at LSU is weighed with different categories and more than 100 people applied for homecoming court.
“I’m not a football player or cheerleader, but I love football and dreamed of being out on that field,” Higgins said.
He was an LSU Ambassador, in Kappa Sigma fraternity, on Student Government for four years, on Students United around Volunteering and Entertainment, the Union Governing Board and the African American Cultural Center Board, just to name a few.
Despite his extensive resumé, Higgins still did not feel like he stood out when he met the top 30 semifinalists.
“I had known of them and they were the cream of the crop,” he said. “I’d never been so intimidated in my life. Everyone really cared about LSU and embodied what LSU really stands for. Any one of them could have been king or queen.”
Perhaps the most different practice since 1970 was the speech and interview for the top 10 finalists.
The five men chosen as finalists had to stand in front of all the women finalists and give a speech, Higgins said.
“We had to stand out,” he said. “We had to show how much we love LSU.”
With limited time to prepare for his speech and using his creativity to make an impression, Higgins decided to make his speech about peanut butter and jelly, based on the Web site that has the “peanut butter jelly song” that used to play constantly in the SG office, he said.
“I actually made a real peanut butter sandwich and ate it,” he said. “They outlawed props after that.”
He compared how boring peanut butter and the jelly are by themselves and how much better they are when put together to how great LSU is in bringing everyone on campus together.
“It was the cheesiest thing I ever did,” Higgins said.
But once he was on the field and his name was called, he felt it was all worth it.
Similarly, Jennifer Hale, the 1998 Homecoming queen, said she was nominated by her sorority, Delta Zeta, and her roommate filled out the application.
She said there was an interview and application and she had to remember everything she did in college.
She studied up on current events for the interview, which fit right into her political science major.
While at LSU, Hale was Miss LSU in 1997, a member of Delta Zeta sorority, an LSU cheerleader, in Golden Key honor society, the Fellowship for Christian Athletes, Phi Eta Sigma and the Catholic Student Center.
Like Higgins, she had a hectic time just prior to her interview. She came straight from cheerleading practice and had to get ready in the bathroom within 30 minutes. She said she thinks things were better that way because she did not have time to get nervous.
She said the interview was easy for her because that is her strong point. She is now a reporter for WAFB Channel 9 in Baton Rouge.
For Hale, LSU really was her second home. She is from Alabama and her mother moved to Arizona while she was still in college, so she was not able to go home as much as her friends who lived an hour away.
She said that also allowed her to be so involved in extra-curricular activities while at LSU.
Hale said the most important thing she found was to be herself in the interview because people are so tired of hearing the politically correct things; they need to see individual style during the interview that represents the diversity of LSU.
Now the 10 2003 Homecoming court finalists face this same road. All candidates are involved in multiple student organizations and are active in the college community with an intense love for LSU.
“Everyone on court is very active in the LSU community. I think that we really have a great group on court and I think it will be a tough choice for students because we are all so involved,” said candidate Susanna Derlein.
Past winners recall experience of being LSU royalty
October 30, 2003