This week is homecoming, which means one thing only: let the popularity contest begin. Which isn’t a bad a thing, considering homecoming is just that.
Before I go any further I need to clarify, this is not a hate on Greek rant but more of a statistical approach to homecoming from my own personal prospective.
This year marks my fifth and final homecoming at MSU. In my previous four years, every single person who has won homecoming queen and king have been Greek-affiliated. Whether Panhellenic, Order of Omega or Multicultural, Greek always reigns supreme.
What do Anastasia Reed, Nicole Savage, Valerie Flores, Blanca Garcias, Christopher Carter, Luke Shelton, Chance Gibbs, and Lenny Benton all have in common?
That’s right, they are the homecoming royalty from the last four years, and right again, every single one of them was in a fraternity or sorority.
I could sit and type out all their Greek letters, but you get my point.
I have known many of these people in my time here, and yes some of them were even friends of mine but my question remains, what is the point of a non-greek student campaigning for homecoming king or queen? History has proven time and time again it’s not worth the effort for non-Greek students.
Students without a Greek platform do not have a large enough voice on the MSU campus. Even a student with multiple affiliations outside of Greek life does not have the numbers to win the title of homecoming king or queen.
The Caribbean Students Organization is the largest student organization on campus and still struggles to be elected a homecoming king or queen.
Last year, two members of CSO were nominated for homecoming court and both walked away without the crown. I have reached out to both people about additional affiliations but did not hear from either.
People will challenge this statistic and say lots of non-Greeks have won prince or princess and even duke. My argument is where are these people when the king and queen are crowned?
This year a non-Greek student is in the running for homecoming queen, I am not 100 percent sure what she is affiliated to but Greek isn’t one of them. It will be interesting to see how well she does up against the Greek army.
This is not meant to upset anyone but rather motivate more students to get involved and change the stereotype.
Go out and get involved, meet people and have the best time of your life. No one said you have to be Greek to win homecoming king or queen. At MSU, we seem to have forgotten that.
Royally Pissed • Oct 16, 2012 at 5:29 PM
Sarah, I really think that you are overlooking the facts of why those individuals are named Homecoming Royalty. Being a person who actually knows every single person you listed above, I can tell you, yes that they are all Greek members; however they are more than just that. Take for instance, Luke, Chris, Anastasia, Lenny, were all members of the MSU Student Ambassadors as well as Peer Counselors. Chris and Anastasia were also RA’s for MSU Housing. Lenny was SGA Executive. Luke has been on SGA, Mustang Maniacs, and several others, Nicole graduated with honors, Blanca and Valerie were also extremely active in other organizations. So the sole fact that those being Greek is not the reason they won royalty.
Furthermore, if you have ever had a conversation with any of those individuals you would see that they are all polite, school spirited, and well respected.
Your article is not giving credit to the individuals who receive the ultimate status. You should look around and see that just because a non-greek did not win the crown, doesn’t mean that they are any less deserving of it. Also, as far as the statement about the Caribbean students, they did not even show up to see if they won, how would that have looked for MSU if they had won and didn’t even care enough to be crowned.
Also, if any person has a chance to win, it should be the non-greek who made the ballot. If you think about it, this year there were 4 ladies nominated for Homecoming Queen. 3 of them (Lacy Talley, Krissy Boxell, and Renee DuBois) are all Greek which would mean that the overall Greek vote would of been divided by three, therefore the 4th Queen Nominee should of easily defeated those other three. However, you seem to forget that those three individuals are extremely involved outside of Greek Life, in the Republican Club, MSU Housing, and Honors to name a few.
I really find it upsetting that the Wichitan lets people state their opinion when it is not based on all the facts.
Give credit to who/where it deserves. Instead of criticizing how the won, congratulate them on the fact that they did win. Quit slandering the Homecoming Court and the Greeks.
Lastly, I also think that if you are going to write an article about this and use previous winners that you should get their permission for their name to be printed. Yes I understand it is public information, I still think that you should have the common courteously to inform them you will be using their names.
And on a side note, Order of Omega is an honor society, not a Greek governing organization (You should of included IFC, just a side note for your next anti-greek posting from the Wichitan)
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Anonymous • Oct 10, 2012 at 2:34 PM
From my experience, the reason people win in these kind of things is because they have the biggest collective group of people voting for them (I know, obviously. That’s how you win). Let me clarify… when I was in high school, we only nominated homecoming queens. Every year, the most popular girl in band would get nominated, and usually had the best chance at winning. Why? Because we had over 100 people all teaming together to vote for one of our own.
The greeks have a better sense of unity (well the chapters that actually like each other) than the rest of the school. If we wanted a nursing student to win, all they have to do is get most of Bridwell to vote for them and they would probably have it in the bag.
Posting flyers and not saying another word about your campaign is not the way to win… but yet, that’s what almost everyone does. Heck, I didn’t even know it was time to nominate until a student mentioned it in class.
If people really want to win, they need to campaign harder. The only problem is that when you win, nothing special happens. You don’t serve any position, you don’t get any say in things… you’re just another page in the yearbook. So there’s nothing to really campaign except a title.
Oh well. that’s their challenge to overcome.