On the manicured turf, two crowns gleam underneath the stadium lights. The 2019 homecoming king and queen nominees stand with their parents, anticipating the announcement of the winners. Cheers erupt from the stands. The winners have been revealed. 

Friday night, Coppell High School seniors Ana Hinojos and Alex McCord were announced as homecoming queen and king at the Coppell vs. Irving football game. 

“Honestly, when I heard my name, I was just like ‘oh my gosh, that’s me,” Hinojos said. “I didn’t believe it at first. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I won. I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

McCord and Hinojos had very different approaches to campaigning, with McCord making an effort after obtaining his nomination and Hinojos only campaigning to get nominated in the first place.

Many of McCord’s friends from the CHS theater department voted him for nominee, something unknown to McCord himself. However, after receiving the nomination, McCord and his friends went full force into campaigning for the crown. 

Creating an Instagram account (@alexmccord4hocoking) with 18 posts and over 300 followers, McCord made numerous posts with obscure captions, asking for his followers to vote him as king. Videos of him saying “Alex McCord loves puppies, and you should vote him for homecoming king” and of him biting into a lemon to “combat scurvy and raise awareness for scurvy prevention” are only the beginning of his comedic posts, which ultimately related to and entertained his followers.  

“I’m very grateful that I won,” McCord said. “But whether or not I actually won wasn’t really the point to me. I figured I would make a stupid, trying-to-be-funny campaign. Our campaign first started as a normal campaign, but as our ideas developed, it became a little more outlandish to be funny. I developed a little character, an exaggerated version of myself doing weird things. It was cool being able to see people respond to my videos. That’s what I really enjoyed about it.”

For Hinojos, homecoming queen has been a tradition within her family, making her want to continue it herself.

“[Being homecoming queen] has been something I’ve always wanted to do,” Hinojos said. “My mom [Maria Hinojos] and my aunt [Monica Ochoa] have been crowned queen in their high schools. So I said, ‘Why not me? I can do it too.’ So I just told my friends it would be really cool if they could vote for me, but I wasn’t even expecting to get nominated.”

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