Elizabeth Goode Represents LWC at 81st Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival

PINEVILLE, Ky. -- Lindsey Wilson College student Elizabeth Goode had a regal experience this Memorial Day weekend. Goode represented the college at the 81st-annual Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival, held May 26-29 in this Southeastern Kentucky town.

Goode, an education senior from Somerset, Ky., was one of 20 female students who were nominated by their respective colleges and universities to be the festival's queen.

During the festival's first three days, the queen candidates appear at numerous public events, where they are observed by anonymous judges. Gov. Steve Beshear crowned Jefra Kaysi Bland of the University of Kentucky the festival's 81st queen on Saturday afternoon during a ceremony at Pine Mountain State Resort Park.

The four-day event is the second oldest continuous festival in the commonwealth after the Kentucky Derby. It commemorates the arrival of Dr. Thomas Walker, the first non-native explorer to enter what is now Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap. The queen is crowned in Pine Mountain State Resort Park's bucolic Laurel Cove amphitheater. The crowning ceremony was emceed by former Gov. Paul Patton, who is president of Pikeville (Ky.) College.

Goode, who has been named to the college's President's or Dean's lists every semester she has been at Lindsey Wilson, is one of the LWC Bonner Leaders. She is an intern this summer at the Center for Rural Development.