Former Homecomers queens gather

Memories were plentiful Saturday night as 23 past Homecomers queens gathered for a recognition ceremony and reminisced about being crowned.

One queen told the audience her talent at Homecomers was drawing; other queens said they sewed on stage for their crown.

Amanda Emmons, crowned in 1994, said she remembered her Homecomers night because someone came on stage to take away a contestant. The contestant's son was in the hospital for kidney problems and they had found a donor match.

Queens came from towns in Southeast Missouri, including Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Advance, Fruitland and Scott City.

All queens received a pewter Christmas ornament, a bag of items from local businesses, a lei and a rose Saturday. Ruby Johnson-Conrad, 92, crowned in 1935 as Homecomers' first queen, received a bouquet of roses.

The recognition ceremony ended as Nat King Cole's song "Unforgettable" played.

Linda Penzel, director of entertainment for Homecomers, found the queens. She said she began looking for them in old newspaper clippings. She took that information and called every family in the phone book that shared a last name with one of the queens.

Penzel said she found 54 of the 63 queens since 1935. She has all the records of those 54 queens compiled, and they will be placed in the Cape Girardeau Archive Center for the public to access.

Penzel said three queens she found were deceased: Dorothy Penzel, crowned in 1936; Lillian Boehne Harmon, crowned in 1941; and Meredith Adams, crowned in 1993. Penzel said Adams died in a car accident near Jackson.

Laura Beck Lauinger was the only queen to be crowned two years in a row, in 1998 and 1999.