Well, for starters there’s the Darlington 500 parade and race, with an audience of 75,000, the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, SC, with almost 35,000 runners and the Marine Corps Marathon in the Washington, DC, with 30,000 runners. “Living out of suitcase for a year,” as her predecessor described it, is one fringe benefit to being the 2015 South Carolina Watermelon Queen. Sydney Ford of Gaffney, SC, a junior at the University of South Carolina, already has her dance card almost full, and the bookings are still coming in.

“I have learned how to balance my time,” she said in an April 30 phone interview. She is active in her sorority, holds a straight-A 4.0 grade average and volunteers with the USC Dance Marathon, which last year raised $500,000 for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. “I knew going in to the competition for watermelon queen that it would involve a lot of travel and time, like a part-time job,” she said. Also, it has already taken her to exotic places like Palm Springs, CA, and French Lick, IN. “I have never been to Indiana before,” she explained.

Ford has attended the National Watermelon Association meeting in Palm Springs, and state watermelon association meetings for Georgia, Illinois and Indiana. In the rest of 2015, she will visit 25 supermarkets throughout South Carolina for promotional events; tour the farms of five watermelon growers in South Carolina and Delaware; read a book on farming at four elementary schools; make seven TV appearances in major markets in South Carolina; and reign at watermelon festivals in Hampton and Pageland in South Carolina.

Her calendar includes visits to four college football teams, helping to throw out the first pitch at Watermelon Night for the Charleston RiverDogs minor league baseball team; taking a royal bow before 25,000 attendees at the Schutzenfest Festival in Ehrhardt, SC; and handing out cups of watermelon at the South Carolina State Fair this fall in Columbia, SC.

Ford, 20, is the daughter of Janice Ford and the late Billy D. Ford. At the University of South Carolina, she is majoring in public relations with a minor in political science and has a 4.0 grade average. She is a page for the South Carolina House of Representatives. Her collegiate achievements include a Palmetto Fellow Scholarship, Dean’s Scholar Award, Capstone Scholars Program, University 101 Peer Leader, Chi Omega Sorority, Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society and Palmetto Girls State. After graduation, Ford plans to attend law school and work in media law or government.

She was crowned South Carolina Watermelon Queen by state Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh E. Weathers on Jan. 17 at the South Carolina Watermelon Association’s annual meeting in Columbia, SC.