We have a queen
Tammy Lamberto Roy will oversee Mardi Gras celebration
Tammy Lamberto Roy named Queen of the 22nd Mardi Gras celebration.
WOONSOCKET — Tammy Lamberto Roy knows how to make the best of each moment after facing cancer over the past 10 years.
What she has learned about making good memories in fact likely played a big role in her selection on Sunday as this year’s Queen of the 22nd Mardi Gras celebration to be held at the St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center on Saturday night. The event is sponsored by the Northern Rhode Island Council of the Arts and helps to raise funding for the organization’s programs.
Lamberto Roy and her well-organized corps of family, friends and supporters jumped head-long into the tickets selling competition that selected a Queen from a field of six determined contestants and when the finally tally was completed got to claim the Queen’s tiara, or least her mother, Pauline Lamberto, did temporarily in her place at Sunday’s Coronation at the Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish Hall.
Lamberto Roy had actually come down the flu just as the Coronation was approaching and had to send her family to the ceremony armed with cell phones and tablets so that she could participate through digital conferencing programs.
As is tradition, Jackie Boudreau, Coronation Committee chair and the 2012 Mardi Gras Queen, said the contestants were not informed of who would be the Queen and her two Princesses until King Jace was in attendance and the announcement could be made by Mardi Gras host Jeff Gamache in front of a supporting group of family and friends and past Mardi Gras Queens and Princesses.
“It’s really exciting to have it announced at the Coronation Ceremony,” she said. “The family members are all here and the girls really get into it,” Boudreau said.
The contestants sell one dollar tickets for a raffle at Mardi Gras as part of the competition. The money raised goes to defraying the cost of Mardi Gras and also all of the arts programs and scholarships the organization sponsors during the course of the year.
Lamberto Roy worked very hard to sell tickets to claim her crown and Boudreau said that was pretty much in keeping with the kind of step-forward person that she is.
“She is just so amazing and she is a very genuine person. I have so much admiration for her,” Boudreau said.
When Lamberto Roy came down with the flu, her family stepped up to make sure the Coronation would also move forward without a glitch.
Her husband, Noel Roy, and father Ray Lamberto, a well-known local musician, stepped up with their technology devices to transmit the ceremony back home and Lamberto-Roy could even be seen watching and listening to Gamache on the screen.
As the honorable mentions of the six candidates, Amanda Girard, Adrienne Marie Sharpe and Paula Marie Hogge, were called up and given their gifts and flowers, the crowd grew ever more attentive to the big moment approaching.
Sandi Cruthirds was then named the second Princess and after Gamache looked at Noel Roy’s phone to ask if Lamberto Roy was still listening, he called up Judith Potter as the first Princess. The realization that Lamberto Roy had claimed Queen was soon spreading through the table holding her family members and Gamache was soon talking the Queen about her Coronation over the conferencing program.
“Thank you everyone very much,” Lamberto Roy called out to the audience. “I had a lot of fun selling tickets and oh yes I will be there on Saturday,” the Queen said.
Lamberto Roy’s mom, Pauline, was asked to stand in for her in receiving the crown from an always silent King Jace and she was even given her daughter’s bouquet of flowers during what was a very emotional moment for everyone in the room.
“I think it was wonderful and she deserves it,” Pauline Lamberto said while noting how hard her daughter worked on the contest fundraising.
It was also a fun day for her too, she noted. “I always wanted to be the Queen of Mardi Gras and I did get to be that for at least a few hours,” she said.
The other contestants also had fun and noted they were looking forward to the Mardi Gras Ball on Saturday night to finish off a great experience of helping out the Northern Rhode Island Council of the Arts.
“I feel like a princess,” Potter said after being presented her sash and tiara. “And, it is absolutely for a good cause,” she added while noting the Council’s many local arts programs.
Sandi Cruthirds said she too though the work fundraising had been worth it, and noted she had help with her own efforts. “My daughters, Savannah and Madison helped out a lot,” she said.
At her home on Monday, Lamberto Roy said she was feeling much better and saw no problem making it to Mardi Gras on Saturday.
While fighting breast cancer over the past ten years, Lamberto Roy has taken many things in stride and always has her friends and family behind her to meet the next challenge.
Last year she was Miss December in the Gloria Gemma Hearts of Hope Breast Cancer research fundraising campaign. And it was two years ago that her friends from the Woonsocket School Department lead by Jenn Maiello and Melissa Olivier flash mobbed her outside her home as she entered another round of chemotherapy treatments as her fight with the illness continued.
Lamberto-Roy still does her regular rounds of chemotherapy but that isn’t stopping her and Noel from creating great moments with their daughter Mia, 5, or escaping on a cruise to Bermuda as they did last year.
Saturday night will be just another of those milestones and Lamberto Roy said she is pretty excited about it.
“Oh yes, I will be there. I’ve already got my dress,” she said.