Royalty court grows, garners more attention

Forty-seven applications. Twenty-eight candidates. Eight spots. Who will be a part of the 2007 Homecoming Royalty Court?

The candidates for this year’s court are posted online, and the winners will be announced at Saturday’s 11 a.m. football game against Minnesota. Northwestern students have less than a week to get to know the candidates through various Homecoming activities.

This year’s royalty court is different than that of past years because all NU students can play a more active role in the voting process.

This will be the first year that students can vote for the freshman, sophomore and junior candidates for Homecoming court, in addition to the senior members. Previously the non-senior members of royalty were chosen by the Homecoming committee, said Homecoming royalty co-chairwoman Jess Klein.

“We hope we can include the student body and make them more involved,” said Klein, a SESP junior.

The first step to royalty court is getting nominated, said Chenault Taylor, a Homecoming royalty co-chairwoman. Candidates are usually nominated by an organization with which they are affiliated, said Taylor, a Weinberg sophomore.

This year’s application included questions about how the candidate embodies his or her specific class and the entire campus, how the candidate shows NU pride and what distinguishes the candidate from other students.

Some of this year’s candidates were really excited about being nominated while others were confused, Taylor said.

“One of the candidates for sophomore boys came in with a Northwestern cut-off sweatshirt, a purple bandana and told us he was wearing purple tights underneath his jeans,” Taylor said. “Sadly, none of us got to see them.”

She said some of the other candidates did not know much about Homecoming court.

“It’s a foreign concept to many people who didn’t have it in high school,” she said.

Although Homecoming is typically an event associated with sororities or fraternities, this year there were a lot of nominations from non-Greek organizations, said Katie Wesner, the Homecoming alumni relations consultant.

“There’s already more buzz about (Homecoming) since everybody can vote for everybody,” Wesner said.

This year 47 applications were submitted to the seven-person Homecoming executive panel, which interviews all potential candidates before selecting three men and three women each for the freshman, sophomore and junior classes, and five senior men and five senior women.

The number of applications was a considerable jump from the about six that were submitted last year, Taylor said.

With the multitude of nominations, Taylor said there was “an actual narrowing-down process” that occurred this year. Last year the Homecoming executive panel selected royalty candidates because there were not enough applications submitted.

With the increased popularity of Homecoming, Wesner said the committee will “probably stick with something similar for next year.”

But each year, some changes are made.

According to “The Tale of the Wildcats,” a book about NU history by Walter Paulison, NU has held an official Homecoming since 1911 even though “alumni had made a practice of returning for a football celebration for a number of years before 1911, but it was not until that fall that the event was officially labeled ‘Homecoming,'” the book says.

The first Homecoming Queen, Regina Dombeck, was named in 1955.

The 1956 Homecoming pamphlet noted that NU had its second Homecoming Queen “who will reign during the weekend festivities.” The pamphlet indicated that the Homecoming Queen was elected by student vote.

Though it has been more than 50 years since the first woman was crowned, the tradition still holds, with the addition of the royalty court.

Voting for the current candidates began Monday and continues until Thursday at midnight.

“I think it’s a way to bolster school spirit,” Taylor said. “It’s great for students to have someone they can relate to who is shown as an important figure at NU – it’s a way to get in touch with the NU community.”

Reach Emily Glazer at

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2007 Homecoming Royalty

Senior Girls:

Tara Corrigan,Avery Duer,Samantha Goldstein,Ema Pasic,Jessica Vaughn

Senior Boys:

Dan Bruhl,Billy Carberry,Dean Henley,Kirk Sells,Alex White

Junior Girls:

Leila Stehlik- Barry,Annie Middleton,Courtney Sharpe

Junior Boys:

Tyler Browne,Tyler Lorzeni,Blake Yocom

Sophomore Girls: