The Crowning of this year’s Tuks Rag Queen is part of the Annual Rag Week festivities. The winners will be paraded on the first float of this year’s Rag Procession on the 31st of January 2009

Last year’s Rag Queen is Bridgette Elk, a Quantity Surveying student at the University of Pretoria.

According to Maggie Seymore, Executive Committee Member of the RAG Committee, the presenters for the evening will be Tanya van Graan and Jason Greer as well as a surprise guest presenter. The celebrity judges on the evening will be Gareth Tjasink, Hendrik Cronje, Corinne du Toit, Graeme Richards and Thuli Sethole.

This event is produced by Wayne Stafford, of Miss South Africa, and promises to be a night not to be missed. The evening dresses wore by our 16 finalists are made by well-known South African designer Gerrit Pienaar.

“The debutante programme is an initiative started by Tuks Rag to encourage more student involvement in local charity organisations. This programme is a valuable source of revenue for Tuks Rag. The money which is raised by these debutantes is paid out towards the charities which our organisation supports,” said Ms Seymore.

She added that debutantes are encouraged to start their own fundraising initiatives and there have been numerous highly successful charity drives which have been started by the participants in our programme. For example, the Tuks Rag Queen of 2006 began the Smile Project - a project that pays for the operations of babies born with cleft lip/palate or other facial deformities which enables them to enjoy a normal life.

Children with such deformities often face difficulties in life including severe speech impediment. They are placed at an educational disadvantage from an early age.
Fortunately modern day medicine has advanced to a point where it is possible to perform corrective surgery on patients so that they can experience a normal future and gain the ability to take up their rightful position in our society. However, these surgical interventions are expensive meaning only few people can afford them.

Only full-time female students of the University of Pretoria aged between 18 and 23 can be included in the debutantes programme.