Miss and Mr. UNC announced at Homecoming football game

Dani Nicholson was crowned as Miss UNC and Logan Gin as Mr. UNC before the start of the homecoming football game on Saturday.

The two seniors had been campaigning along with four other finalists leading up to the vote on Friday.

Nicholson said she wasn’t expecting to win and she was shocked when her name was announced.

“All the candidates were just very qualified as far as who they are, their personalities, what their service platforms stood for, so it really was fair game in my mind to any of us,” Nicholson said.

Nicholson said she is planning to complete her service project, Discover You(NC), by April — however she hopes to leave a legacy past her own graduation.

“I really wanted to create a space that students of any background, any culture, any race, any religion, any sexual orientation, gender identification and everything else, a place where students could come together and be allies as far as any issues that may be brought or forced against them during college years,” she said.

Nicholson said she hopes her service project will start dialogues and build bridges between students, faculty and administrators — and she has many ideas on how to do that.

Tatiana Egbuna, a sophomore and one of Nicholson’s campaign managers, said she became close with Nicholson through working together on Harmonyx.

Egbuna said she helped to get the word out about what Nicholson was running for and what her platform is.

“For each round that she got through, it was just amazing because it was one step closer and we knew that she stood for something so great and something that is so needed on campus. And just the fact that people saw that, the students saw that, what she was standing for was so amazing and really trusted her with her platform, that was such a big thing for her and for the people that were helping her,” Egbuna said.

Gin said when he found out he was named, Mr. UNC, it was surreal. His parents had come down from Ohio to spend the homecoming weekend with him.

“Looking back on applying here, especially imagining coming here, four years ago moving in, I never would have thought that senior year this would be me in this position as Mr. UNC,” he said.

Gin’s service project is to bring adaptive sports, like wheelchair basketball or wheelchair rugby, to UNC.

Gin said he has support from the General Alumni Association and he is using his partnerships across campus to help his service project. He said he plans to reach out to Campus Recreation and student government to establish his service project as an intramural sport.

“I’ve been pretty amazed by the amount of support that my project has had throughout the time that I announced I was running to the primary voting to the final voting on Friday,” he said.

Grace Shackelford, a senior, said she helped on Gin’s campaign after meeting him when they were both resident advisors in the Connor Community.

“I was excited for him to have a bigger impact on campus and continue to expand his love for accessibility and bringing that to campus and also sports, and so it’s cool to see all that come together,” she said.

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