Vale HS Student Queen of Oregon Shrine East West Game

Local student crowned East Queen of Shriner’s East-West football game

By BILL BLANKINSHIP
During a School assembly at Vale High School,  Felicia Nelson, a Vale High School student,  was crowned as East Queen of the 2011 Shrine East-West Football Game, to delight of the Vale High School student body. The annual game, for the benefit of the Shriners Hospital for Children,  will be played for the 59th  time at Baker City, July 31.

The game will feature 24 exceptional high school players, each from eastern and western Oregon. The players have been selected from the nearly 140 high schools classified as size A1 to A4, and will be playing their final high school game as All-State players.

Young women who are selected as queens of this football game are selected from a very special group from these same high schools.  Qualifications for queens mean that, each queen must have been a patient at a Shriners Hospital for Children. Contestants are recommended and sponsored by a Shrine Club within Oregon and are selected at the same time as the All-Star football players themselves.

This year’s queen, Felicia Nelson, was born with a degenerative spinal condition that had her growing hunched over,  she faced extreme pain as well mental abuse at school. She underwent a surgical procedure a couple years ago,  when it was determined that growth was slowing, and she instantly grew four inches in height and became a beautiful young lady.

Nelson,  who was a patient at the Portland Shriners Hospital,  will have numerous duties as qqueen.  She will appear in parades throughout the Treasure Valley and eastern Oregon, and will be honored
and hosted at clubs and civic groups.
Nelson will meet with the football players and join them when they visit the Portland hospital. During game week in Baker City,
Nelson will have dinners and receptions in her honor, will view football players and her own special display in the windows of the merchants of Baker City.
Nelson will be prominent in the Shrine Parade on game day, the largest Shrine parade in the Northwest, and she will be introduced to the fans at the game and to the television audience of the live broadcast of the Shrine football game.

The Shrine hospitals are achieving miracles every day, the 22 North American hospitals operate on a $2.6 million daily cost, which adds up to almost a billion dollars a year,  all provided by the North American Shriners.