If you’re visiting Mineral Point, the first thing to do is pick up The Democrat Tribune. The paper, now in its 171st year, is going strong!

This week is a keepsake edition. Not only does it capture the high points from homecoming weekend, and the crowning of state softball champ MVP Beth Wood as homecoming queen — but inside is a comprehensive review of all the homecoming queens since 1936.

We have to confess that we were planning to do a short post about past homecoming queens.  But when we went to the MP Archives to look through old yearbooks, curator Mary Alice Moore let us know that Democrat editor Joelle Doye had beaten us to the punch! Joelle did a much more thorough job than we were planning — we were going to show one or two – not 79 of them!

As relative newcomers to town, it was fun to find out who had been homecoming queen. It turns out there are queens all over the place! Probably a day doesn’t go by when you don’t see at least one queen. I saw two today, and the sister of another. The business on High Street with more than its fair share is Hair Unlimited – they have a pair of queens. And, Tony’s Tap has a queen.

So kudos to Joelle Doye and The Democrat Tribune. We look forward to every issue, not only to find out what’s happening, but to learn something about the past.

– Contributed by the Hays