Queen for a Day

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, an article detailed the decline in "Pork Queen" pageants throughout the Midwest. The article attributed the decline to a number of factors, including a steep drop in the number of family farms and a lack of corporate sponsorship, and made passing reference to "waning interest among young women". Talk about missing the forest for the trees (or the pig for the slop, or whatever Pork Queen pageant afficianadoes would say); read the article and this mysterious "waning interest" becomes less of a mystery:

The Pork Queen's wake-up call came at 3:30 a.m. An hour and a half later, wearing a rhinestone tiara, white sash and blue denim jacket, Cassidy Greiman headed to the Blank Park Zoo, where her public was supposed to be awaiting.

After four hours, the 19-year-old college sophomore had greeted fewer than a dozen children at the opening of a pig-birthing unit. A local radio host at the event last month interviewed two zoo interns but didn't find time to talk to the Pork Queen. The chilly sow barn was mostly empty when she launched into a speech on the importance of pig byproducts.

In a sausage casing, there you have it -- being the Pork Queen sucks. Let's treat our Pork Queens more like royalty. At least let the poor girl sleep in once in a while.