The head of a 10-point buck named Larry is mounted in the office of Brooke Stoeckel, the 2008 Queen of the Snows.
“I’m often asked if my dad shot it,” she said. “I say, ‘No, of course not!’ ”
Meet the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s newly crowned queen: The 26-year-old is an avid outdoorswoman who enjoys hunting deer, snowboarding, sledding, ice skating, camping, white-water rafting and just being outside.
“I like taking the time to just be really quiet and take in God’s country and reflect,” said Stoeckel, of Edina.
Not that she’ll have much time for quiet reflection. Beyond a nonstop schedule of appearances during the Winter Carnival, the Queen of the Snows and King Boreas and their royal court will spend the year serving as goodwill ambassadors for St. Paul and its carnival, traveling and making appearances at parades, festivals, schools, nursing homes and other events and venues.
Stoeckel is not new to the tiara, though. She served as a Cambridge Ambassador, a royal position, in 1999-2000. And although Stoeckel, who is single, moved into an apartment in Edina last summer, the Cambridge area represents her roots. She grew up there, attending a private Lutheran school where her father and grandfather also went. Her great-grandfather’s farm, which dates to the late 1800s, is still in the family, and Stoeckel lived there – by herself – after college.
“It was pretty quiet, just me in a five-bedroom farmhouse on 200 acres,” she said. “The house made a lot of noises at night.”
And while our city’s new queen is not a St. Paulite – the carnival does not require candidates live in the city – she is very Minnesotan: Her father instilled a love of fishing and hunting in Stoeckel and her brother.
“I bagged my first deer when I was 15,” she said.
Now she’s a city girl – but one who still takes time off during deer-hunting season. “Every year, I’m out in the woods for probably about five out of the nine days of the deer-hunting season in the Cambridge area,” she said.
Stoeckel is a graduate of Augsburg College, where she majored in mass communications and minored in family ministry. She works as a sales manager for VMN (Visit Minneapolis North) Convention Bureau and was voted 2004 Rookie of the Year by the Minnesota chapter of Meeting Professionals International. Stoeckel said she believes her career skills will help her promote St. Paul and its carnival.
VMN, which also sponsored Stoeckel’s candidacy, is happy to accommodate her royal schedule, she said, which could mean taking days off and leaving early or coming in late.
“My boss said, ‘If you’re happy at home, you’re happy at work – I support you 110 percent,’ ” said Stoeckel, adding that her friends, family and boyfriend also are excited for her.
Stoeckel is glad because she really wanted to run for queen. She previously volunteered for the carnival, and she liked what she saw of the winter festival, which started in 1886.
“I’ve been considering doing it for over eight years, actually,” she said. “What appealed to me about being a candidate for Queen of the Snows was the volunteerism. I love how the community wraps its arms around this historical event so tightly. We need to ensure that the legacy doesn’t ever die.”
Still, Stoeckel said, she was surprised when the crown was placed on her head at Thursday night’s coronation at RiverCentre’s Grande Ballroom.
“It caught me off-guard,” she said. “I was speechless, and that doesn’t happen very often.”
Molly Millett can be reached at mollymillett@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5505.
Copyright 2008 Pioneer Press.
