SC - quick important note- update

[Laura C. Minnick]

Sue Clemenger wrote:
> 
> What's a Slug Queen?
> --Maire

Ah! Sometimes I forget about the new folks...

The SLUG Queen (SLUG stands for the Society for the Legitimization of
the Ubiquitous Gastropod) is a local institution, since '81 or '81
(accounts from Old Queens vary). It's sort of a take-off on the Rose
Queen/Dairy Princess/ and other Royal Court nonsense for civic
festivals. But ours is alot more fun! The Queen is chosen in a sort of
anti-beauty pageant (as much for chutzpah as anything else) and the en
Queen presides over the Eugene Celebration- imagine Berkeley at it's
silliest, but a little more family-toned. Big parade with goofball
entries like the Umbrella Drill Team. A couple of local groups routinely
have weird entries, like this years Y2K prevention team- all of them
wearing giant tubes of- you guessed it- Y2KY Jelly. It was a scream.
There's the One More Time Around Marching Band (mostly middle-aged),
local charities, etc. Just a great time. There's a giant street fair,
lots of bands on different stages all over downtown... this is part of
the same group that puts on First Night (New Years Eve), the Tuba
Christmas concert (200 tubas downtown It is AWESOME, especially if you
like Heavy Metal ;-), and a variety of small events year round.

The SLUG Queen does the parade and lots of PR during the three-day
Celebration (a fair-sized tourist draw) and then the rest is up to the
individual, though the expectation is basically that the Queen is
involved in a variety of charity functions and such. I've been looking
for a way to draw the community together, and the library fundraiser has
been the perfect vehicle. I don't _have_ to do this, but it is good for
the city (and I love this place- I want to do something for it) and a
rare opportunity for me to do stuff in the public eye- a bully pulpit if
you will. And it looks great on resume, etc.

I just have to put up with the occasional drunk, sunburns in weird
places, sore hair from the fruit pile in my head, sore feet from the
platforms, and the irritation of being nice to the mayor, who I
personally despise. And believe it or not, I got alot of really useful
advice/ideas from the West Kingdom Website, from their on-line version
of the "On no! You've just won Crown! What do you do now?" Book. Really
useful.

And in Eugene, once a Queen, always a Queen. I like this. I will forever
be Queen Carmen Slugana, the Orange one...

Does that answer your question? ;-)

'Lainie