HBCU Campus Queen: An EBONY Reign

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) were founded to promote Black excellence and brilliance. In an effort to emphasize this notion, EBONY Magazine has generated an opportunity for all HBCU Queens to reign, on and off of their school’s campus.
The HBCU Campus Queen competition is open to all of the young women who were elected by peers and school officials to represent her institution of higher learning.
This is inclusive of 75 Queens, all HBCU attendees.
In the past, the winners of the competition have earned a trip to New York for a photo shoot that later appeared as a spread in EBONY Magazine.
For the past few years, EBONY Magazine has been filling its pages with the stories and photos of the competition’s top 10 HBCU Campus Queens, and Louisiana schools have seen plenty of familiar faces.
In fact, the state represents half of the women selected for the honor in its 2016-2017 class. This means that Louisiana represented five of the top ten winners, and the Southern University (SU) System is home to two of them.
The students on each campus play a vital role in the selection of these young women.
SU students, specifically, largely promote the SU System’s participants in the competition. The morale on campus is always high for these young women as everyone anticipates the results of the competition.
Junior Secondary English Education major, Caitilin Virdure, supports the competition for the university and thrives on the hope that it will shed some positive light on the campus.
“Miss Southern in EBONY Magazine would greatly benefit our university by drawing the readers of EBONY to notice how diverse, yet family-oriented our campus is. It’ll be [SU’s] second feature in the magazine which means we’re already familiar to some people,” Virdure said.
There is a legacy behind HBCUs that each student who attends must live up to. As the faces of universities, campus queens are obliged to take on this task with grace.
The 87th Miss Southern University and A&M College, Felise Thompson-Doyle, knows the task all too well as she is seven months into her reign, and currently vying to be one of EBONY’s top 10 HBCU Campus Queens.
Despite, the endeavors that come with the crown, Thompson-Doyle held tight to her values as a Queen as she reflected on her reign thus far.
“As a Queen, you don’t wear the crown alone, but share it by mentoring, providing service throughout the community, and letting younger generations showcase their inner Queen. . .when I won, my entire campus won. I wanted to share my reign with the people who voted for me because they are my inspiration,” she admitted.
While voting has yet to begin, the time for EBONY Magazine’s HBCU Campus Queens online competition is near. You may find more information about the competition at www.ebony.com