Although heavily involved on campus, Blake Stone said he was extremely hesitant to participate in the Mr. ULM pageant, but “because of the great support I have from my friends and my [cheer] coach, I decided to turn in my application at the very last minute.”

This decision paid off as the freshman radiologic technology major was crowned as the second Mr. ULM Wednesday night.

Stone, or contestant number two, competed alongside four other contestants: Mason Musgrove, Hollis Walker, Phillip Vu-Nguyen and Bryce Lovelady.

Contestant number three, Hollis Walker, actually competed in the inaugural pageant last year, so he wasted no time in having both his talent and spirit competition portions choreographed by the ULM Hawkline.

“Competing for the second time, I knew this was not something I could do overnight. I reached out to two of my Hawkline friends for help, and they stuck with me from beginning to end,” said Walker, a senior kinesiology major.
His efforts paid off, however, as he won $150 and placed as the first runner-up.

Although he did not get the title of Mr. ULM 2019, Walker said, “I will still support the title holder and Miss ULM. I will most definitely compete again next year to continue helping raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.”

Raising money for the Miss ULM platform, the Children’s Miracle Hospital Network, is the primary goal of the Mr. ULM pageant. Miss ULM 2018, Hagen Campbell, said she loves that the reigning Miss ULM is continuing the tradition she started.

“I think it goes to a great cause, and it’s just a fun activity that students can be involved in on campus. I hope that the future of this pageant just gets bigger and better. I hope students continue to want to come, do this pageant and have fun,” Campbell said.

Prepping for the pageant cost Stone nothing but time. “It’s easy to prepare for your talent when it’s just you, but because my talent called for another person, we had to match up our schedules, and when I tell you we were both busy, we were both busy,” Stone said.

Stone said preparing his talent was the most stressful part of the pageant but, “once the adrenaline kicked in, everything seemed to just fall into place.”

In fact, Stone not only fell into first place in the overall pageant but the talent portion of the competition as well, thus taking home the preliminary talent award.

Nautica Jones said her favorite part of the competition was the talent portion, because she loved seeing everyone’s creativity and effort, especially her friend Stone. “I was proud of Blake before he hit that stage, but his performance reminded me of everything that makes him so great,” said Jones, a biology freshman.

Stone said being crowned feels amazing, but he also feels the responsibility that comes with the title, so he hopes to set the bar high for the next Mr. ULM.

“I would love to reach student life more and strengthen the diversity aspect even more than what it is now,” Stone said.

Whitman said she is very excited to work with the second Mr. ULM. “Blake seems awesome and full of energy, so I’m ready to get this year started and start making appearances with him,” said Whitman, a junior pre-pharmacy major.