The Queen pageant is a highly anticipated event that the student body looks forward to every year during homecoming. The bash videos and embarrassing events make this event enjoyable and brings laughter to the crowd. This years events were held in Ground Zero where the peers of the nominees sat and watched as the queen nominees were put through different challenges, Oct. 24.

The queen court consist of five senior girls, unlike the princess nominees from the other classes that hold three nominees. The queen nominees this year are Jenna Orcutt, Kristen Rosenthal, Logan Rood, Maddie Yee and Ashely Erickson.

The pageant began with the classic bash video produced by the video production class in Ground Zero. This video was humorous and featured the queen nominees being asked questions and then having to answer them honestly. This gives students a chance to see the nominees say things about the others in a joking and funny manner.

The starting event was a shock for the majority of the nominees. This consisted of having the queens sit in a chair blindfolded with the king nominee they were paired up with behind them. The nominees were told that one of the king nominees was going to come up to them and kiss them on the cheek and they would have to guess which king it was. This brought anxiousness and laughter as the queens waited for their kiss.

The audience was aware that the kiss from the so called king was actually a fish converting the giggles to an uproar of laughter from the crowd. Rood was suspicious of this and figured that the school would not actually allow this sort of thing to happen.

“I had a suspicion,” Rood said. “I figured it was going to be something else because we are a Christian school and are not aloud to kiss, so I knew it was going to be something else I just didn’t know what it was going to be.”

Experiencing a dead fish kiss you on your cheek was not a pleasurable thing to experience, Erickson said. The smell was bad and she had an idea that this was not the normal kiss from a boy.

“I sure hoped it wasn’t going to be one of the kings actually kissing me,” Erickson said “I am kind of glad it was a fish. I was suspicious because it smelled like a fish and it was slimy. It is not fun experiencing being kissed by a fish.”

The next event on the venue was a little more gross and not something most would want to go through. The queens were given a pan filled with whipped cream while still sitting in the chair and were asked several questions. If they thought they knew the answer, they had to put their face in the pan. If they got the answer wrong, the kings were asked to grab a cup on the table behind the queens and pour what ever was in it on, not just the person who got got the question wrong, but all of them.

Rosenthal was expecting embarrassment but not to this extent. Being a nominee, she knew she was going to have to do some wacky things but being covered in mysterious liquid was not in her book.

“This is not at all what I expected the pageant to be,” Rosenthal said “Just dressing up and funny stuff like that was what I pictured. I didn’t expect it to be as gross as it was, but it was still really fun to go through.”

Having been covered in a variety of things such as vegetable oil. eggs, flour and a mixture of ketchup, mustard and cottage cheese plus a few other liquids, Yee was still able to say she enjoyed herself up on stage.

“Its definitely an honor to be nominated and am thankful to be here with all the other queen nomines,” Yee said. “I didn’t think we would really get messy or have to do anything gross but it was defiantly gross and disgusting; it was just awful, but it was really fun. Especially going through this with the other nominees, because I know it will give us a lot of things to laugh about later even though we are stinky and gross right now.”

Freshman Morgan Miller, being new to the school, did not know what to expect. Miller was very entertained and did not expect the queens to be drenched in food like they were.

“The pageant was hilarious,” Miller said. “I was kind of expecting them to eat something gross like the Princess Pageant, but I really like that they got stuff put on their head instead.”

Although many enjoyed the pageant there were the few who expected more from the anual event. Junior, John Teixeira felt that more should have been done and that previous years were a little better.

“I was expecting the bash video to be more, like it was last year so that left me a little disappointed,” Teixeira said. “Also, that the queens weren’t actually going to get kissed was sad, it would have made things funnier. But I guess I would have to say that the getting food poured on them was funny.”

Sophomore Trevor Beal agrees with Teixeira and states having higher expectations by comparing to the Queen Pageant from last year.

“Crazy stuff like last year was what I was expecting,” Beal said. “This year wasn’t as good as last year but it was alright since they at least embarrassed the people. I did enjoy it though, but I think something like making them wrestle each other would have made it a little better.”

Math teacher David Lee is experiencing the pageant for the first time this year.

“I thought it was entertaining,” Lee said.” I was wondering in my mind why any young lady would want to be a queen candidate to be put through that kind of experience. But what I did take form it was I like the idea of doing these homecoming activities each day because it looks like it can really bring the student body together. I think it can be a very positive thing if you look beyond the humiliation, it has a very positive affect.”

For more features, read the Oct. 23 article Princess Pageant fuels homecoming excitement (VIDEO).