The last queen has been crowned, and the last king has claimed his victory on the Iowa State campus. Homecoming celebrations will no longer include the reign of royalty.

Though I never had any strong feelings about the whole king and queen scene, I was a little sad to see it go. In a way it means the end of an era — the “let’s elect people to something just because we like them” era.

In high school, that was always the conflict about Homecoming royalty. People wanted to do away with the election because they complained that it was “just a big popularity contest.”

Whoa! Stop the presses! Call the newspapers and tell them to leave the front page open! Does the principal know about this? The Homecoming court is a popularity contest? Well, no kidding. What else should it be?

It’s not like we’re electing these people to be world leaders or major decision-makers. That’s what we’re supposed to do for our student government elections, and we all know what a great turn-out we get for that. We practically have to drag students into the voting booth to get them to participate.

For once we don’t have to vote for someone because they are the smartest or most logical thinkers. If that’s what you want, join the quiz bowl team. In the race for the crown, you can vote for whomever you want, without feeling obligated to think about it very much, weighing your options and all of that happy crappy.

If I understand correctly, Iowa State’s candidates for the court are actually elected through an interviewing process, and the only input the students have is in the nominating. Therefore, the whole popularity argument doesn’t really hold any water.

Homecoming courts always remind me of beauty pageants, something I think the world could definitely live without if only they weren’t so entertaining. Since I have lived the life exactly opposite of your typical beauty queen, my very not tan, unpouffy-haired, lack of cleavaged self has enjoyed mocking the contests I saw on television for many years.

I never fail to find something to critique about the well-groomed candidates that parade around the television screen in their elegant evening wear or swim suits and high heels. I have always found the swim suit and heels combo particularly amusing. Not only would it look ridiculous on the beach, not to mention almost dangerous in the sand — you could turn an ankle in those things — think how hard it would be to put those tight little shoes back on to go home after you swim and your feet are all wet. Now that’s a good way to get blisters.

To be fair, a lot of the young women who are contestants in these pageants aren’t as dumb as they are made out to be. Several participants are aspiring college students working toward actual degrees with potential to hold a good job someday. One would hope that their intelligence would have the chance to shine through during the interviews.

Unfortunately, there is really no chance of that happening. The problem is in the questions they ask the contestants. They don’t ask realistic things, like what is one thing they have done locally to help their communities, or what their opinions are on well-known current events. Instead they ask questions like, “What are your lifetime goals or dreams?” or, “If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?”

Even if the poor girl did have good answers for these questions, they aren’t going to look very good next to some unrealistic fluff head who replies, “I want to stop world hunger,” or, “I want to create world peace.” It would be wonderful if these things could be accomplished, but I highly doubt they are going to happen at the hands of a pageant-winner.

Perhaps the young woman’s goal is to go into medicine, but now it just doesn’t seem ambitious enough compared to everyone else. Her answer might end up sounding like this: “My lifetime goal since I was little is to become a doctor … and then, uh … start a country-wide recycling program … and, um … save the world, yeah, that’s it, save the world.”

While the elimination of the Homecoming court elections isn’t an earth-shattering disappointment, I think it was a fun, lighthearted tradition that we should bring back.

I’m sure the process for appointing a Homecoming queen and king is much more down to earth than that of a beauty pageant. Leave it be; it wasn’t hurting anyone. (As long as the candidates don’t have to go through the rigorous swim suit competition, that is, in which case they would need to lose the heels.)

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Joanne Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Aurora.