Kris Mason
Staff Writer
A wild, dance party atmosphere took over the Commonwealth Ballroom on Friday night during the first annual Reign of the Rams pageant show.
The Reign of the Rams featured a lip-syncing competition and trivia contest between the senior class members of the Homecoming Court, and crowd members donated money to their favorite contestant with all proceeds going to charity. The male and female contestant earned 35 percent of the total 100 percent of the vote toward Homecoming King and Queen, respectively. Runner-ups received 0 percent of the vote.
After tallying the money, it was announced the winner of the night was Allie Metts representing Alumni Tomorrow and Frankie James of Kappa Alpha Psi,
Metts, a senior majoring in exercise science, was happy to win but felt like it wasn’t her primary motivation to be on the Court.
“Honestly homecoming court isnt about winning to me,” Metts said. “I think everyone on the court is more than qualified and its really plastic at the end of the day. Its really about representing yourself, your organization and your university.”
The junior class winners of prince and princess were also announced. William ‘Trey’ Nunnally won prince and Samantha Florino won princess. The contestants for the junior class prize only were announced but did not participate in any of the Reign of the Ram competition. The winner was selected based on their participation in activities earlier in the week as well as online votes.
Florino, junior biomedical representing the Emerging Leaders member was thrilled to win the highest prize for the class of 2017.
“I honestly just wanted to represent VCU in anyway I could because VCU is really my true love in life,” Florino said. So i wanted to not only represent emerging leaders but VCU as well.”
Nunnally, a graphic design major representing Alpha Kappa Lambda, was excited as well.
“ I couldn’t believe that my spirit and love for VCU could grow any bigger and after this week i never worked with before,and getting to meet all the contestants and all the people coming to events i couldn’t be more proud of graduating from this school now,” Nunnally said.
The main event of the night was lip-syncing dance routines from all the candidates for homecoming king and queen. Dance moves were met with rousing applause, hooting, hollering and high pitched shrieks from the crowd. The general theme was the journey from freshman year to senior year and all the ups and downs of that road. All the performances featured pop songs that were easy to sing along to such as the 2002 hit single “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. The crowd was very involved in the performances, with people in the seats urging the candidates from their groups.
The dance and lip syncing portion of the contest was followed by a Q&A session. The candidates wore VCU spirit wear and each answered a trivia question about VCU such as the mascots name and the number of campuses VCU has. In an attempt to get to know the candidates better they also answered questions such as favorite quotes and what they think will be the biggest impact they will have on society.
They also spoke about their experience at VCU and the organization they represents. James told the story about how he changed his major to music education as a senior four years ago because he didn’t want to graduate with a degree in something he wasn’t passionate about. While he ended up having to stay at VCU longer than anticipated, he said he would not change anything about his experience at the university.
Meanwhile, in the lobby members of the board frantically counted donations for each candidate. There was an influx of donations at intermission as people donated to based on what their favorite dance was. All proceeds went to the Childrens Hospital of Richmond. Five people looking down whipping through dollar bills and coins trying not to lose count.
Chinyere Onyirimba was the homecoming court chair. The general science senior said she was pleased with the event.
“I think it went really great. it was definitely a lot bigger than i thought it was going to be,” Onyirimba said. “it really surpassed my expectations and it also thanks to my homecoming court. They were super awesome , ready to learn whatever they had to learn to make this a successful event.”
She also said she was pleased how each class felt more representatives this year than in years past.
“In the past we’ve neglected younger classes, so i think that it’s super important to involve them, since they don’t really understand what a college homecoming is,” she said. “They came here too, they love their school too, why not let them represent their school as well.
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