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her high school with her posse of friends, The Plastics. Regina was a shoo-in for queen as the whole school looked up
to her and admired her for her beauty but mainly because
everyone wanted to be like her. Regina was popular, rich, and
beautiful yet beneath that surface she was manipulative, abusive, and cruel. When the nominees for school’s Spring Fling
Queen are announced Regina and The Plastics are shocked
to hear that one of the outsiders, an artist, was nominated
for queen. This artist shared none of the characteristics Regina celebrated. Think about how few times the women we
see on screen who aspire to be queens of their schools are
given qualities other than daft or diabolical. As millennials,
as college-aged women, we wanted to think of ourselves as
open-minded. And yet, before this project started, the two
of us so easily assumed Homecoming Queens were simply
(and reductively) just the prettiest, most popular women on
campus whom everyone loved (or loved to hate). And they
were crowned in silly and superficial ceremonies during a
football game neither of us attended until this year, our last
year, while in the midst of this research project.
We were wrong.
Examining a seventy-fives-plus-year -old tradition sparked
our interest. We wanted to know if these events were part of
a living history at Slippery Rock University, if these women
would still be remembered and honored, both recent Queens
and those from decades earlier. And if so, by whom? Or
whether we were simply chasing an ignis fatuus, brief flashes from long-ago afternoons in October and May only preserved in dusty yearbooks and lonely social media posts. And
if in ten, twenty, or fifty years, two graduating seniors from

Queens of Slippery Rock

the English Department come looking for answers, would it
matter?
On the surface, the stigma seemed accurate. Queens tended to be gorgeous women with outgoing personalities, beautiful extroverts. Before we met and interviewed any of our
school’s Queens, what we did know for certain was they were
always placed on a stage to be gawked at while they waved,
smiled broadly, and accepted compliments, flowers, and gifts.
A panel of judges or students seemingly always picked an attractive and extroverted woman, dubbed her better than the
rest, and called her their Queen. So, we began making doing
research and phone calls.
Slippery Rock was founded in 1889 to train educators.
Known then as Slippery Rock State Normal School, the old
class photos show mostly women, tireless souls who would
populate the front of classrooms in Western Pennsylvania for
generations. In 1926 it became a four-year teachers college,
churning out even more graduates each May for the state
of Pennsylvania and beyond its borders, the shock troops of
developing minds.
Slippery Rock has been crowning Queens of various kinds
since the early 1900s, beginning with the May Queen celebration. For a woman to be chosen as the May Queen, an
organization (such as a sorority, fraternity, academic society,
or club) would first nominate her. She would be interviewed
by a panel of local, successful business owners. The interview
narrowed down the number of women nominated to forty or
so contestants. Then each of the women, dressed in evening
gowns, paraded across a stage and were asked two questions.
Depending on how they answered, the panel eliminated or

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kept them for another round of questions. Finally, the panel
would choose one woman to be crowned May Queen.
From the outside, reading about this business decades
later, the May Queen pageant especially seemed merely to
consist of women prancing around on a stage wearing glittery dresses and answering questions for prizes. A superficial
competition where women were objectified and the most
beautiful was chosen to wear a crown, everything we had
come to expect, the smug confirmation of our own assumptions. May Queen Linda Gill Jones (1969) tells us, “Suddenly I was the ‘it girl.’ I hate to make it sound like that.
Before that you were one of the pretty, semi-popular girls,
then overnight you were supposedly different.” This sudden a
transformation of ordinary student into a Queen as a way to
set the extraordinary apart from the ordinary did not sound
entirely positive. If college is a kind of meritocracy, then it
seemed un-collegiate, undemocratic even.
Many of the Queens we spoke with acknowledge some
negativity surrounding being crowned and how it affected
them long after college. Homecoming Queen Maria Montaro (2013) admits, “I don’t put it on my résumé. I don’t want
them to think, ‘Oh, she was Miss Popular’ because I don’t
think of myself that way at all.” Homecoming Queen Tori
Hill (2016) agrees, adding, it’s like a popularity contest–I
don’t like to say that–but it kind of is. I’m not going to go to
my job or when I apply for a job be like ‘well I was Homecoming Queen so you should hire me.’ I don’t think that it
will really go that far but it is nice to be recognized. I’m a part
of history and I love it.”

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Queen Judy Sinchak Wingenroth (1964)
(Photo courtesy of Slippery Rock University Archives)

Through our research and because of the initial interviews,
our ideas began to shift. We were still unsure sure if getting
a plastic tiara and a bouquet of flowers was worth it. Neither
of us had ever attended any Homecoming activities that had
to do with crowning a queen until this year. We had always
written it off as a waste of time. In high school we saw how
the preppy, beautiful cheerleader always got the crown. Neither of us thought there would be any difference in college
and since college is a chance to learn on your own terms, we
had opted out.
Currently almost 9,000 undergraduate and graduate students as of this writing call Slippery Rock home—at least

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for a handful of years, that is. Slippery Rock has one McDonald’s with a drive-thru, one grocery store, and only two
bars that serve alcohol. “Downtown” is one block more or less
of picturesque restaurants like Camelot (American), Nico’s
(Italian), Compadres (Mexican), En Lai (Chinese), and the
oldest, a fond memory for alumni at Homecoming, Bob’s
Subs. There are a few shops, a jewelry store and a hair salon,
and everything is lit by new electric street lights made to
look like old gas lamps. Queen Linda Gill Jones expressed
great fondness for Slippery Rock being “in a bubble.” The
scenery may not be changing but the people and the voices
within our bubble were certainly changing over the decades.
Beginning in the 1940s, women had two chances to
shine. The May Queens began facing competition from a
new annual tradition—Homecoming. Following a national
zeitgeist in the beginning of this second tradition, each class
of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, would nominate and vote on one woman to represent them. These four
women represented not only their class level, but also the
entire student body. As Homecoming Queen Judy Sinchak
Wingenroth (1964) said, “Your class nominated you and
that’s what made it so special . . . to think that other people
thought something of you.” Although this class vote for the
Homecoming Queen changed soon after to the tradition we
know today, one woman being elected to represent all class
levels, the tradition of only students voting for Homecoming
Queen began here.
In the late 60s, the rules for how the women were chosen for Homecoming Queen began to shift. Enrollment at
Slippery Rock University from 1960 to 1970 rose from 1.314

Queens of Slippery Rock

to 5,446 students. With such a large increase in students, it
was no longer feasible to gather an entire class to vote for a
woman to represent them. Instead, a registered student organization, club, or residence hall would nominate a candidate
for Queen. Candidates had to be full-time students and a
GPA above 2.5. Most of our interviewed Queens relished
in the support of their organization. “Green and white society nominated me, so I accepted,” Homecoming Queen
Kaci Vandergrift (2015) confides, “[and] if it wasn’t for them
standing behind me with their support, I probably wouldn’t
have done it.” Queen Kaci Vandergrift is one of many queens
who told us their organizations made all the difference. Although the queen reigns with only her king by her side, the
support of those around her can make all the difference between being Queen or an also-ran.
Candidates may also run as independents. They too need
the support of their fellow students, proven by obtaining at
least fifty full time student signatures on a petition. They
cannot have served on Homecoming court before, and must
meet the same academic requirements.
This is a rarer occurrence, but some women we spoke to regretted not running as an independent. “If there’s one thing
that I would have done differently is I would have run as
an independent,” Queen Roslyn Stutz confesses, “I never
want to make them feel bad but if I had been true to myself,
I would have run as an independent.” This thread of independence and confidence shines through every interview we
conducted. These women were not chosen by chance, they
were the only women for the job.

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A panel of staff from the Student Government Association would narrow the list of candidates through interviews.
Queen Roslyn Stutz Ionta comments that the questions they
asked in the 1960s were “analytically based, relevant to the
issues and educational goals of the 1960s, politically relevant,
and dealt with how we could be influential to the future.”
Queen Linda Gill Jones notes that she was asked about her
views on interracial marriage, a potent and of-the-moment
topic as her interview was a mere two years after the famous
Loving v. Virginia case that made anti-miscegenation laws
unconstitutional. Her second question dealt with describing
how she would handle a stressful situation.
After the interviews five women are chosen for Homecoming Court to campaign for a week. The nominees distribute flyers, flood social media, talk to classes, and introduce themselves to seemingly everyone to get their name out
on campus. Finally the school casts its secret ballots and the
new Queen is announced at halftime during the Homecoming football game.
The year 2011 brought another big change to how the
Homecoming Queen was selected. Complaints about the
lack of diversity on Homecoming Court led a panel of judges to revoke 2011’s Homecoming Court and permit anyone
who submitted an application to run. The process remains in
place to this day same except for the removal of the faculty-led interviews.
Taking away the gatekeepers was a way to keep the process
more democratic. After all, Homecoming Queen is meant
to represent the student body. “Being Homecoming Queen
meant being a representative of the university,” explains

Queens of Slippery Rock

Homecoming Queen Sam Hayduk (2010), “somebody who
encompasses everything that the university is and all the
best aspects about Slippery Rock and I still believe that.” Instead of interviews, staff confirmed each nominee met the
requirements to run. Anybody who met these requirements
campaigned for a week and then the student body voted for
Homecoming Court. The five women voted onto court were
announced during the pep rally the night before the Homecoming football game where, at half time, the queen would
be announced.
The diversity scandal in 2011 made the people running
the Homecoming elections rethink how we view students
of color on our predominantly-white campus. On our campus of nearly 9,000 students only 5% are African American,
a mere 450 students. Of the 82 Queens we found during
our research beginning in 1948, only 5 were African American. And two of those five women were crowned in the past
two years: Queen Tori Hill (2016) and Queen Cadi McCoy
(2017).
Being a person of color on our campus is a fact that impacts candidates who may consider running for Homecoming Queen. Homecoming Queen Elke Flores Suber (1992)
said she had a little voice in the back of her mind during
campaigning, “Being a woman of color on a predominantly
white campus, I was like, ‘I don’t know what my chances are.’
Not that I didn’t think anybody would embrace me but at the
same time I did realize I was a woman of color, a minority
on campus, running for a position that is voted on by everyone.” She was successful and said she appreciated how much
everyone did support her. She added, “it was an awesome

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feeling to be embraced by the university community.” These
women were proud to represent the entire school.
All three of the African American Homecoming Queens
wanted to use their position to encourage other women, especially women of color. Queen Tori Hill spoke on the importance of being involved and how her organization, Black
Action Society (BAS), aims to inspire people on campus,
“We’re trying to influence other people and get more females, specifically African American girls, to go out and run
for homecoming queen and do what you want to do. Run for
positions in student government association, run for things
here and there, don’t be afraid to do what you want to do.”
Queen Tori Hill followed through on her goals—Queen
Cadi McCoy ran with the support of BAS, like Tori, and was
mentored by Tori throughout her campaign, and won.
This theme of empowering women and people all across
campus was prominent in all our interviews. Being crowned
Queen by the university community was something all of
our interviewees reported with deep pride. By all accounts,
their reign was a positive experience. Still, the Queens were
not impervious to the stigma discussed previously. Homecoming Queen Hollie Carlson (2011) divulges, “It seemed
like something that didn’t happen to people. I didn’t know
how that worked, so once I got involved with the process and
saw how realistic and feasible, and not just like a popularity
contest, type of thing that it was.” Through their experiences,
their misconceptions (and ours!) were broken and we got the
truth of what happens behind the ceremony.
Dismissing the tradition of crowning a queen dismisses the work these women put in to meet strenuous require-

Queens of Slippery Rock

ments and represent their community. Dismissal ignores the
positive, long-lasting effects that these women have experienced after their reign. Gaining confidence is one of the best
outcomes that these Queens have experienced. Homecoming Queen Karen Lee Grybowski (1964) eloquently shared
her experience, “Being Homecoming Queen helped me understand the importance of community, personality, kindness and support. Being given this honor helped build my
self-confidence, which gave me the push to help empower
other women.”
Queen Elke Flores Suber experienced this same growth,
saying being crowned led her “to have more confidence and
faith in myself to go out and do bigger things and dare to do
big things.” It is clear that this experience helps our Queens
be more confident in themselves, but some even commented
on why they felt that way. Queen Katie Hill started by saying,
“It [Homecoming] changed the way that you view yourself ”
before explaining why that is: “I didn’t win by chance. I won
because I earned it and people saw me as that figure to represent Slippery Rock.” To Queen Katie Hill, her being elected
was confirmation that people found inspiration in her.
Not only has being crowned helped these women with
their confidence, but the honor gave them a professional upper hand, as well. Queen Maria Montaro commented
on how the experience helped her achieve her professional
dreams, saying, “Homecoming elevated me in the workplace
by giving me the confidence to go out there and do other
things after the safety net that is Slippery Rock.” In this job
market, having a resumé that gets the attention of employers is a feat. Queen Hollie Carlson continues, “I always put

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it on my resumé and people love to talk about it. They’re
fascinated by it. It never fails that when I interview with my
two page resumé that’s the [activity] they want to talk about.
So it’s definitely helped me in that way. People want to talk
about Slippery Rock and Homecoming and my experience
here.” Queen Maria Montaro and Queen Hollie Carlson are
only two of the fifteen queens we interviewed and each one
of them showed the pride representing their university gave
them.

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Lynne, Harriet, Queen Roslyn Stutz Ionta, and Barb (1969)
(Photo courtesy of Slippery Rock University Archives)

These women put in hard work and time and leave with
new self-confidence. They continued working to empower
women who may follow in their footsteps or see them as
a role model. Queen Tori Hill (2016) shared that winning

Queens of Slippery Rock

Homecoming Queen to her was extra special to her for
one reason: being a role model to her little sisters. She said,
“That’s who I do it for. My little sisters are everything to me,
so I want to encourage them.” Encouraging women, young
and old, is an idea that all can get behind. There is no better
time to embrace the sentiments of the pussy-hat and Me
Too movements, especially in our political and social climate
of 2018. Though Queen Roslyn Stutz Ionta began her reign
in 1969, she still believes this tradition is beneficial for women, “At that time, women were still pretty arm ornaments in
many cases. I never saw myself as just a pretty face sitting
on a pillow who was going to be cherished by men. That is
never what it was about. We were emerging into a world
where women started defining themselves by their success,
careers, or their accomplishments. Growth for women is so
important and it was growth for us.” In the year of her reign,
there were fewer opportunities for women. Being Queen was
a way for women to own their greatness and not feel shame
for wanting to be the best.
Women are constantly told they are not enough, criticized
for qualities men are applauded for, and cut down professionally. Women, especially women of color, are often disempowered. We must own and take every chance we have to
empower ourselves. “I know that being Homecoming Queen
has elevated me,” explains Queen Tori Hill, “I am able to
use my platform and encourage other women. I wanted to
encourage other women to strive for what they know they
can get.” By elevating women who have shown grace, intel-

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lect, and compassion to all and letting them inspire others is
one of the best steps forward we can take as a university and
society.
Our most recent Homecoming Queen, Cadi McCoy,
stressed that this tradition needs to continue. When asked
if she thought being crowned Homecoming Queen would
affect her after college, she responded immediately, “I know
that I can do anything I put my mind to. If I really want to
achieve something, I can. That is what I will take from all
this.” Her power and determination that came from being
elected Homecoming Queen are something no one will ever
be able to take away from her. All of these remarkable women have showed us that, and more.
Long live the Queens of Slippery Rock.
Acknowledgments:

We are deeply grateful for the Queens who so generously shared

their stories, without you we could not have succeeded. Thank you to
Queen Judy Sinchak Wingenroth (Homecoming, 1964), Queen Linda

Gill Jones (May, 1969), Queen Roslyn Stutz Ionta (Homecoming, 1969),
Queen Karen Lee Grybowski (Homecoming, 1972), Queen Elke Flores
Suber (Homecoming, 1992), Queen Jennifer Sinoply Frick (Homecom-

ing, 1997), Queen Allison Glova Taylor (Homecoming, 2000), Queen
Emily Watson (Homecoming, 2006), Queen Sam Hayduk (Homecom-

ing, 2010), Queen Hollie Carlson (Homecoming, 2011), Queen Maria

Montaro (Homecoming, 2013), Queen Katie Hill (Homecoming, 2014),
Queen Kaci Vandergrift (Homecoming, 2015), Queen Tori Hill (Homecoming, 2016), and Queen Cadi McCoy (Homecoming, 2017).

Queens of Slippery Rock
The research for and the writing of this essay could not have been

achieved without the assistance of a different kind of Slippery Rock

University royalty. Thank you to the Alumni Office for helping us make

contact with these queens and for helping us bring them together during
Homecoming 2017. Thank you to Dr. Judy Silva, Kevin McLatchy, and

the rest of the Bailey Library archives staff for being so accommodating
and helpful during our research about these women. Thank you to Nancy
Cruikshank in the Office of Grants and Sponsored Research for funding
this project.

And finally a thank you to Dr. O’Connor who sought us out with an

idea to tell the stories of amazing women and who encouraged every
stage of creating this oral history.n

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