DEBORAH CORRAO / L’Observateur / August 14, 1999

“I told my directors they might as well cancel the pageant because I’m keeping my crown forever,” says outgoing St. John Parish Sugar QueenKara Keller of LaPlace.

Keller, 21, won the title last summer. She had participated in severalpageants before that, placing but never winning.

“I was always a bridesmaid, but never a bride,” she says. “This was myfirst title.”Keller is a senior at the University of Mississippi where she is majoring in court reporting with plans to graduate in May 2000. She has maintaineda 3.82 cumulative GPA and many academic honors during her collegecareer, including that of being named Outstanding Court Reporting Student at Ole Miss for two years.

This past year her reign as St. John Sugar Queen has taken her on awhirlwind of activities, attending pageants and festivals throughout the state promoting the parish and its sugar cane industry.

“I’ll miss everything about it,” she says, “especially representing St. JohnParish around the state. I didn’t expect to make so many new friends overthe year and visit so many places I didn’t even know existed.”Keller says she was invited to more than 30 festivals and pageants throughout Louisiana this year but could only attend 15.

“The hardest thing was traveling 4 1/2 hours from Oxford on Friday night, traveling to a festival on Saturday and driving 4 1/2 hours back to Oxford on Sunday,” she says. “I’ve put a lot of miles on my car this year.”Keller was responsible for all of her travel expenses she incurred as the result of her travels but says the benefits far outweighed the expenses.

The outgoing queen says her father, Albert, fusses about her being on the road so much but has tried to be patient. Her mother Kaye, a pre-admissions nurse at River Parishes Hospital, on the other hand, has been enjoying her daughter’s reign.

“My mom’s my best friend,” says Keller. “Mom deserves to be wearing thecrown as much as I do. She’s here getting things done, ordering things,taking care of the dry cleaning. Sometimes she travels with me.”Keller says her boyfriend, high school sweetheart Josh Mitchell of LaPlace, is looking forward to the end of her reign. She and Mitchell, abusiness major at Louisiana State University, have been dating for four years.

“He’s glad it’s almost over because he wants his girlfriend back,” she says with a laugh.

Keller says she has seen Mitchell about once a month this past year. Shesees him only about twice a month otherwise.

“We don’t have a lot of time to be together,” Keller says. “Sometimes hecomes to a festival with me and carries my things. So far our long-distance relationship is working.”Her plans for the fall include participating in the International Rice Festival in Crowley.

“If I don’t win, I’ll probably take it as a sign to give up pageants for a while and finish school,” she says.

After graduation, Keller hopes to be placed with a court reporting agency through Ole Miss and says she will go wherever she is sent.

“I’d love to come back and work in Baton Rouge,” she says. “But I’ll gowherever the wind takes me.”Eventually she would like to build her clientele and begin freelancing.

Last year, because the St. John Parish Sugar Queen Pageant wascelebrating its 50th anniversary, Keller was crowned with a new gold crown made especially for that event.

She is reluctant to part with it.

“I don’t have my farewell speech written yet,” she says. “Last week Iwent to the St. James pageant and I was already crying. I just don’t wantto have to go through with it.”Her advice to the young woman to whom she will relinquish her crown is simple: “Treasure your reign. Travel as much as you can. Meet as many newpeople as you can. Enjoy the year because it flies by so fast. You won’teven realize a year has gone by before it’s time to give up your crown.”

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