Julieann Bourque still had the nail in her pocket.

She made it herself at SugarFest on Oct. 4, at the blacksmith's station at the West Baton Rouge Museum in Port Allen. The blacksmith put the metal in the fire, it turned red, and she hammered it to a point.

"It was one of the coolest things ever," she said. "I have it right now."

Bourque is Miss West Baton Rouge Sugar Queen. She represented the parish at the Louisiana Sugar Cane Fair & Festival in New Iberia in late September, and she came home with Miss Congeniality, an award her fellow contestants vote on.

"The girls have to vote, and so whenever the girls vote for you, it's like everybody just makes one decision that you have the nicest personality in the room," Bourque said. "It's something I'll remember forever."

She said nothing like that had ever happened to her.

"It was one of the sweetest, most heartwarming feelings I ever had," she said. "I cried the whole day."

Bourque was born and raised in Brusly and graduated from Brusly High School in 2025. That spring, she was West Baton Rouge Parish's recipient of a $1,000 Louisiana Sheriffs' Scholarship, which goes to one graduating senior in each participating parish.

The West Baton Rouge Sugar Queen title is open to women ages 18 to 22, and Kristen Ashford Sibley organizes the local competition. Bourque said competing was one of the best experiences of her life, mostly because of the friendships she made with the other contestants.

"The camaraderie between me and the girls is something that I'll cherish forever," she said.

But the thing she kept coming back to was home.

"I grew up in West Baton Rouge," she said. "Our community is the best tight-knit community. I'm so blessed to have grown up in this community, and to represent something bigger than myself. I just respect West Baton Rouge so much, and I will always say WBR proud."

The queen who wants to teach

Cadence Robertson was at SugarFest, too. Judges in New Iberia crowned her the 83rd Queen Sugar, representing Iberville Parish. She's from Plaquemine and graduated from Iberville Math, Science & Arts Academy - West in 2026.

Robertson said she'll spend her year traveling to fairs and festivals across the state. She also wants to get into schools.

"Education has always been a big value in my life," Robertson said. "It's really important to me that people and kids know where sugarcane comes from. So with this title, it gives me an outlet to teach."

In a written statement to WBR Independent after the festival, Robertson said what has surprised her most is how many people don't know where their sugar or food comes from.

"It does not simply appear on grocery store shelves or at Walmart," she wrote. "There are hardworking farmers and families behind the products we use every day."

At SugarFest, she started with the basics.

"Sugarcane is not a commodity," she said. "It has to be turned into sugar before it becomes the commodity that we sell and make money off of. Farming is a 365, 24/7 job."

She called cane farming a family operation, and in her statement she said that family in the industry goes beyond blood.

"Everyone is considered an aunt, uncle, or cousin, and there is a sense of community that brings people together," she wrote. "It is also an incredibly strenuous and demanding way of life, and you have to genuinely love what you do to dedicate yourself to it."

She said she hopes to be an advocate for the farmers who spend long hours in the fields.

"Their hard work deserves to be recognized, appreciated, and understood beyond the farm gate," she wrote.

Her message for everybody else was short.

"Eat real sugar, and always thank a farmer."

SugarFest did that, too. At the awards ceremony, the festival honored E.J. Gros as the oldest sugarcane farmer in West Baton Rouge Parish. The crowd applauded, and the sugar queens lined up for a photo with Gros and other parish cane farmers before the farmers headed back to work. The harvest, known locally as grinding season, had started about two weeks earlier.

SugarFest is the West Baton Rouge Museum's annual celebration of the sugar cane harvest. This year was its 31st. Rain moved most of the festival indoors to the community center.