To kick off a week of pageants, the princesses participated in a game show event with the rest of the high school as their audience, Oct. 28.

The 30th annual homecoming candidates were introduced by means of slideshow with photos from their formal introductory shoot. The candidates form each class made their way to the tables on stage to begin the game. A Jeopardy board was displayed on screens for every one to see with several categories to choose from. The questions were intended to familiarize the audience with the candidates.

The object of the game was for the candidates to answer the question correctly and earning points for their team. However if the question was answered incorrectly the princesses were forced to pick from a hat of consequences to perform.

Senior and first time queen nominee Callista Fries helped out with the princess pageant and enjoyed being able to inflict the consequences on the princesses. Fries will be participating in the queen pageant, Oct. 29.

“I think it went really well, aside from a few bumps in the road. My personal favorite part was when I got to break the egg on Jenna’s {Bynum} face,” Fries said. “When we were originally planning it someone came up with a the idea of doing a gameshow and we rolled with it and decided on Jeopardy. The whole aspect came about because we just wanted them to do something gross.”

First time nominee Claire Kollenkark, ’16, is happy with the class participation and the overall atmosphere of the pageant. Kollenkark also felt more comfortable because she was surrounded by two close friends.

“It was really fun, and it was fun being a part of it and having two of my closest friends by my side made it even better,” Kollenkark said. “I felt like everybody was involved and all the classes were cheering for us.”

Freshmen princess nominee Erin Wilson anticipated much worse but was very happy with her very first princess pageant. Wilson looks forward to watch the upcoming pageants with the queen and king participants.

“It was really fun to be up there with all the other princess nominees,” Wilson said. “I didn’t really know what to expect, but to be honest I though we were going to have it a lot worse than just an egg cracked on my face.”

Senior and king nominee Jordan Castro is happy with the way the pageant was planned and believes there was more purpose behind it.

“In the past I kind of just remember the princesses going up on stage and getting humiliated with no specific objective,” Castro said. “But this year even though the questions were impossible and they still got humiliated, it looked like something was going on, I really enjoyed the whole thing.”

Sophomore Elizabeth Baker felt that the pageant built a sense of community amongst the members of the campus.

“I really liked when the princesses got the answer wrong and they had to grab a punishment out of the hat,” Baker said. “Because we didn’t really know what was going to happen. It brings all of the school together to enjoy homecoming. The pageants are pretty funny, so I like attending.”

The Queen Pageant will be held in the Student Ministries Center from 2:25-3 p.m., Oct. 29. The King Pageant will also be held in the Student Ministries Center from 9:35-10:10 a.m., Oct. 30.

The 30th annual homecoming game will take place on the North Field at 7 p.m. The pre-game events will start at 6:30 p.m. where the princess candidates will be introduced. At half-time of the varsity game, the winners will be announced for all the homecoming court nominees.

This writer can be reached via Twitter: @gaby_siqueiros.

For more features, read the Oct. 24 article, Character counts week raises awareness to teens around the country.