MANSFIELD — Eleanor Lenehan had waited more than a century to become a queen.
Her radiant smile on Monday afternoon made it clear she felt it was worth the wait.
Lenehan, a 101-year-old resident of the Crystal Care Nursing & Rehab Center in Mansfield, was selected by a panel of five judges as the “Ageless Queen” during a competition in the John Hartz Building at the 174th Richland County Fair.
Sidney Caudell, 70, who lives at the Arbors of Mifflin, was selected “Ageless King” during the same event.
John Lowe, 63, from the Crestwood Care Center in Shelby was chosen “Duke” and Eleanor McMasters, 99, from the Lexington Court Care Center was selected “Duchess.”
The judges made their decisions after emcee Trae Turner, chief of community living for the Area Agency on Aging, interviewed each of the contestants on stage. All of the eight contestants — four men and four women — live in local skilled nursing care centers.
Afterward, Lenehan graciously spoke of others when asked how it felt to be chosen queen.
“I am just so happy … everyone is so kind to one another,” said Lenehan, who said she grew up in Massachusetts and came to Mansfield about 18 months ago.
(Photos from the Richland County Fair’s “Ageless King & Queen” contest inside the John Hartz Building on Monday afternoon. The story continues below the photo gallery.)
Lenehan said during the contest that raising her children was her greatest accomplishment.
“Every one of them are very talented. They’re not just talented … they are just beautiful (people) and who love the Lord and they just praise the Lord all the time. They are very unusual people and how they ever got that way, I don’t know,” she said with a laugh.
Lenehan laughed again when asked she had ever been a queen before.
“No, I am from the country … I don’t know anything (queens),” she said.
Caudell said he grew up in Mansfield and his first job was doing preventative maintenance on vehicles for the City of Mansfield, a job he said that he enjoyed.
Like Lenehan, the affable Caudell said he never imagined being selected king of anything.
“Maybe in my dreams,” he said with a laugh. “I really feel good about today.”
