At the turn of the 20th century, Rex and his consort were near in age. Something like 10 years apart. Well in the 1910's, there was a "scandal" because a Rex married his queen not long after the season was over. After that, so the story goes, Rexes needed to be of a certain age. One thing about the Rex organization though is that they do have Dukes, escorts to the Maids, who are the same age. Usually, they are juniors in college but this year a Duke already has a degree.
Here is a bit out this year's Rex.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworle...7562157140.xml
"Carnival's king anticipates ride of a lifetime
Tuesday February 24, 2004
By John Pope
Staff writer
The last time Robert Monsted Jr. rode in the Rex parade, he was the next-to-last person on the last float, and that was a decade ago.
Today, he leads the procession, enthroned as this year's king of Carnival.
"You could say that I'm really moving up," Monsted said, chuckling.
Monsted's low-key reaction to his lofty elevation is typical of a man whose friends describe him as serious, hard-working and conscientious.
"He's an adult Boy Scout," said Denis McDonald, a former Rex and longtime friend.
A few days before his 24-hour reign, Monsted sat on a sofa in his Uptown living room. Its walls are the shade of parchment and everything is arranged just so: tidy stacks of books precisely placed on a coffee table, china plates neatly aligned on a curio shelf.
"We function better that way," said his wife, Peggy Monsted, who kept an eye on her husband from a chair in a corner of the room as sunlight streamed through tall windows.
But all that orderliness didn't keep the 56-year-old executive from being floored when he was secretly offered the crown last fall.
"The first thought I had when they asked me was, 'You've got to be kidding,' " said Monsted, a business executive, father and, of late, a grandfather.
The accolade was especially surprising, he said, because no one else in his family had even been a member of the Rex organization. Before being asked to join in 1989, Monsted's ties to the krewe had been limited to watching its parades from a ladder on St. Charles Avenue in the 1950s before he left for boarding school and, eventually, Centenary College.
"Being asked to be Rex is a very, very, very big honor in this city and something that will mean a lot for a lifetime, not just for me but for the Monsted family," he said, the organization's logo and colors in full display on his blazer pocket and necktie.
Holding such a public position is in marked contrast to Monsted's usual Carnival activities, which include holding positions in other krewes that cannot be named publicly and helping out with rehearsals for the Rex ball.
"He's so conscientious that if something's not done right, he's nervous," McDonald said. "One adjective you can use about him is his nickname: Nervous."
In civic work -- an implicit requirement for being named Rex -- Monsted has served on the advisory boards of the Salvation Army and Our Lady of Holy Cross College. He is on the Tulane University Health Sciences Center's development committee and the boards of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Young Life of New Orleans, a Christian organization for young people.
"He takes his responsibilities very seriously," said R. King Milling, a former Rex and sometime hunting companion. "He's been given a lot of responsibility, and he's performed well, and I guess you put all that together and you have a structured man."
That structured existence includes rising daily at 5 a.m. for a walk with his wife in nearby Audubon Park. He is to make his first kingly appearance there this morning for the annual Royal Run.
"The Royal Run may be enlightening for him, because he's never seen Audubon Park in the daylight," McDonald said with a smile.
By 6:30 a.m. on every other weekday, Monsted is off to the Pan-American Building, where he is head of the local office of Marsh Inc., an international consulting firm whose specialties include risk management and employee benefits.
It's a demanding job -- 70 people report to him -- and Monsted has had to juggle work responsibilities with obligations that are part of being Rex, such as costume fittings, meetings, arranging gifts for the queen and court, and learning how to flourish a scepter and walk with ease even while the weight of a heavy train is bearing down on his shoulders.
"I think being Rex is almost a job in itself," he said. "I've enjoyed it, every minute of it, but there are a lot of things on the calendar, a lot of things to prepare for."
Among them are such details as making the day special for the queen and court, getting his speeches right for the stops along the route, and being a good representative of the organization.
But the ride is the heart of the experience, and Monsted said he is delighted to be getting back on a float for the first time in nearly a decade, even if Rex protocol bars the monarch from pelting the masses with go-cups and big beads.
"It's really the best way to see Mardi Gras," he said. "You see so many people you know. You see a complete cross-section of our city."
What does Monsted hope to accomplish in one day in his brief stint as a public personage?
"I'm not sure how to answer that," he said. Then he paused and said, "I want to retain as many of the fond memories as I can."
John Pope can be reached at
jpope@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3317. "
Quote:
Originally posted by 33girl
OK, here's my question.
Unless my eyes deceive me, the King is not a spring chicken. What is up with that? Why is the Queen always a young girl and the King an older man?
This isn't just Carnival - at the Maple Festival near where I'm from, the Maple Queen is always a high school senior and if the Maple King is younger than 50, it's irregular.
Equal time for young hot dudes please. 
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