In the midst of the intense battle between Marshall and Jefferson during Jefferson’s Homecoming football game, there was a pause at halftime for the announcement of the most coveted positions from seniors in high schools across the country – the Homecoming King and Queen.

Each of the classes had one couple representing them, except the seniors, who had three. One of the three senior couples is crowned Homecoming King and Queen by popular vote each year. This year’s winners were Siddarth Anand and Ruhee Shah, affectionately known by many of their friends as “Ruddarth.”

“It was really cool being out there and seeing all those people,” Shah said. “I was really nervous before because I hate crowds, but when we were actually out there I wasn’t nervous because we could see our friends in the stands. We were waiting and Jenny was drawing it out saying things like ‘In the 14th year of the 21st millennium…’ and she finally said it.”

Shah and Anand didn’t expect to win, although they received an outpouring of support from their peers, including the other senior couples.

“It was pretty surprising how much support we felt,” Anand said. “We don’t really consider ourselves popular people so it’s nice to see that individually we may not be the most popular, but the two of us together are more than the sum of our parts.”

Elected to Homecoming Court by their respective classes were freshmen David Yan and Cecilia Baek, sophomores Tim Cho and Patty Vitsupakorn, juniors Alex Cintron and Ella Deeken and seniors Tommy Rogers and Mona Bugaighis and Ed Fortunato and Anna Tursi.

Behind the cars carrying the members of Homecoming Court were the trucks hitched to the class floats, which were made of paper flowers and represented the class themes. The winning float belonged to the juniors, who had the theme “Knight in Shining Armor.”

“Our inspiration came from our theme ‘Knight in Shining Armor’,” junior class president Kunal Naik said. “We wanted to do something different but challenging as well so the design became a dragon on top of the dome which is now the symbol of TJ.”