East Texas Yamboree
Queen & Lady In-Waiting Scholarship
The East Texas Yamboree Association strives to give back to our young women who run for queen every year. These young women donate their time and effort to sell pageant vouchers, barn dance tickets, collect donations and, of course, sell raffle tickets to compete to raise money to be our next queen.
These young women are doing this because they love our community and the Yamboree and we always want to show our appreciation of the sacrifices they make on our behalf during the Queen’s Race. We do this by providing scholarships which can be used to further their education; whether at a college, university or a trade school. We want to help them follow their dreams to a successful future.
Queen's Race
During the Spring each year, seven local civic clubs (Beta Sigma Phi, Bluebonnet Literacy, Gilmer Kiwanis, Gilmer Lions, Gilmer Rotary, Iris Garden, and the Twentieth Century) ask a young lady who resides in Upshur County and is completing her Junior year of High School, to represent them as their upcoming East Texas Yamboree Queen Candidate.
The Queen’s Race is a rigorous 12-day event where each candidate, her club, family, and friends canvas the community on foot, make phone calls, send letters, and post on social media and personal websites in an effort to raise money for the East Texas Yamboree and to fund many events: the carnival, queen’s coronation, various adult and youth contests, livestock and ag mechanic shows, fiddler’s contest, gospel singing, and barn dance, as well as many youth scholarships. At the conclusion of the race, the young lady who raised the most money is honorably crowned with the title of East Texas Yamboree Queen. As Queen, her duties begin immediately and will not end when the carnival rolls out of town in October. She will continue to be an ambassador for our community on many occasions until her reign ends and another race begins the next year.