ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Taylor White, 20, of Edgewood, New Mexico was named the 2024 New Mexico State Fair Queen on Saturday during a coronation ceremony at Expo New Mexico in Albuquerque.
White said she hopes to use her new platform to educate people in other states about New Mexico’s culture and what the state has to offer. “What I’d really like to do is implement our New Mexico culture at other state fairs. My plan is to go to hopefully Colorado, I want to go to Arizona, Oklahoma, all of the surrounding states,” White said.
She also said she would like teach young kids about the sport of rodeo and ranch life. “I wanna start teaching others, especially in the City of Albuquerque about, you know, the ranch life. I want them to know about the western way of life,” White explained.
White is a student at the University of New Mexico where she is studying psychology and media communications with plans to become a clinical psychologist in the future. As queen, she said she would like to tie her interests together with charity events.
She told KRQE News 13 that she was thankful for the seven other young women she competed with to be named the 2024 New Mexico State Fair Queen as well as the chaperones who guided them. “They made this whole experience amazing. This didn’t really feel like a pageant in a way, it felt like a week off of school and a week off of work where I got to hang out with awesome girls and just have a good time,” said White.
White shared the following advice with anyone who is interested in competing to be the New Mexico State Fair Queen, “Don’t try to change yourself, you know, to win the crown. These judges, this community, this state wants to see a queen that is just purely themselves. So anyone that, you know, wants to run for this title use what you got,” she said.
White was named Bernalillo County Rodeo Queen in 2023 and Rodeo de Santa Fe Queen in 2022.
