Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Local royalty was crowned in Winchester on Monday.

Sixteen-year-old Aziyan Mundy-Lloyd was crowned the 2023 Winchester Labor Day Queen on the front steps of Broadway Missionary Baptist Church right before the start of the annual parade. She replaces 2022 queen Aaliyah Parker.

“I’m very happy,” Mundy-Lloyd said about winning the crown, though she wanted to make an important phone call right after the announcement. “I stil haven’t called my mom and am waiting to call her.”

Mundy-Lloyd is a junior at George Rogers Clark High School and is the daughter of McKeon Mundy.

Becoming queen is more about community than competition, and the candidates spend time together over the weekend.

“It was really fun. We all got to work on the floats together, and that was a really good experience. I enjoyed it,” Mundy-Lloyd said about the weekend.

The candidates were challenged to dress up like their own Barbie doll, and the new queen was crowned wearing a pair of scrubs.

“I want to go into the health care field either as a trauma nurse or an orthopedic surgeon…So I decided to be a nurse Barbie,” Mundy-Lloyd said.

Jontaisha Sullivan was the first runner-up. She is a 17-year-old senior at GRC and the daughter of Shonna Smith, Leshonda Lyle-Sullivan and Jonathon Sullivan.

The other queen candidates were Evon Gantt and Ke’Onna Smith.

To become queen, the young ladies must complete community service activities, write an essay and go through an interview process.

It was a challenging decision on who should receive this year’s crown.

“This year, we had four amazing candidates…This is the first year that the ladies actually knocked our socks off,” said Cheryl Smith, who was on the committee to choose this year’s queen.

This year’s parade theme was “Back to Our Roots,” and all four candidates understood it well.

“These girls understand that a lot of men and women from our ancestry had blood, sweat and tears. They were strong and struggled to make sure that each one of us today have the liberties we have today,” Smith said.

After leaving Winchester and returning years later, Smith saw local institutions like the bowling alley and swimming pool close. It made her worry about what local youth had to keep them out of trouble.

Meeting each of the four queen candidates gave her hope for the community’s young people.

“They impressed us to all heights,” Smith said. “These girls have such strength and have so many goals that they want to achieve. And they have already started the steps to achieve their goals. They impressed us more than we could ever know. We have future doctors and we have future business entrepreneurs. We have people who want to make a difference for the community.”

Other parade royalty

The 2023 Labor Day Junior Queen was 11-year-old Kyleigh Hampton. She attends Robert D. Campbell Junior High School and is the granddaughter of Marquita Hampton.

The 2023 Labor Day Little Prince was 6-year-old Champ Chenault. He attends Conkwright Elementary School and is the grandson of Mary Margaret Miller

The 2023 Labor Day Little Princess was 7-year-old Kelis Winston. She is a student at Conkwright Elementary School and the daughter of Justine Daniel and Darnell Winston