Ora Nelson
Staff Writer
Troy University held its first Mr. and Miss Trojan Pride election on Wednesday, Feb. 17.
“We hope that this is going to start a new tradition at Troy,” said Carter Ray, Vice President of Legislative Affairs for the Student Government Association. “Candidates have to go through a rigorous selection process, including an interview and election.”
The honor recognizes both a male and a female student who are full-time students on the main Troy campus, and who are at least sophomores.
“We want people who just really excel in their areas of academics and campus involvement,” Ray said. “We want someone who possesses a lot of leadership and love for the university.”
There were 13 female applicants and seven male applicants for Mr. and Miss Trojan Pride.
“The selection process is supposed to take the number of application applicants down to 25, and then use the interview to eliminate some contenders to the top 10,” Ray said. “Honestly, it was lower than expected.
“I think it is solely because it’s the first year we’ve done it and a lot of people are still unfamiliar with it. I think maybe next year we’ll have a little bit more and applicants once it becomes kind of established.”
SGA hopes to honor Mr. and Miss Trojan Pride during a basketball game or baseball game this sports season.
“Of course, we’re going to be honoring them during the Most Outstanding Women Banquet,” Ray concluded. “We’re still getting a lot of specifics, but we can go ahead and say that we’re hopefully going to be giving them swords engraved with their names.”