Key West Fantasy Fest\u2019s new royal court was crowned at a Royal Coronation event at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater on Oct. 17. From left, Duchess Mina Valdez, Queen Cindy Bensen, King Joe Wooten and Duke Floyd Jenkins achieved their titles through fundraising campaigns that raised a total of $353,538 for the Florida Keys SPCA. CAROL TEDESCO\/ FantasyFest.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n
Hundreds of loyal subjects and members of Fantasy Fest royalty spanning decades celebrated with Key West glitz at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater on Oct. 17 as Joe Wooten and Cindy Bensen were crowned the 2025 King and Queen of Fantasy Fest.\u00a0 Mina Valdez and Floyd Jenkins (aka Pepa Mahogany) were installed as Duchess and Duke to complete this year\u2019s royal court.<\/p>\n
Since 1989, Fantasy Fest Royalty have achieved their titles through annual fundraising campaigns that take place over multiple weeks. This year, the four competitors raised a total of $353,538 to benefit the Florida Keys SPCA.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s coronation marks three years since the Florida Keys SPCA took the reins of the Royal Campaign. In 2022, after decades of organizing the competition and benefitting from its proceeds, AH Monroe Executive Director Scott Pridgen and Fantasy Fest board chair Steve Robbins announced it was time to pass the torch. The Tourist Development Association selected the Florida Keys SPCA to take over as planner, organizer, producer and beneficiary, launching a new era for a competition that has crowned 67 King and Queen pairings and raised more than $5.5 million in 36 years.<\/p>\n
Since then, campaign proceeds have enabled the FKSPCA to purchase a fully equipped mobile vet clinic and dramatically expand community outreach \u2013 including spay\/neuter services, wellness programs, kids\u2019 clubs, animal behavioral training and a Safe Haven program for pets whose owners are in emergency situations, said FKSPCA executive director Tammy Fox.<\/p>\n
The coronation festivities included dinner and a two-hour stage show with performances by the candidates and a roster of special guests, co-hosted by Erin McKenna and Bria Ansara. The evening also included a tribute to the late Christopher Elwell, 2010 Fantasy Fest King, highlighted by the inaugural presentation of the \u201cChristopher Elwell Royal Award\u201d to 2015 Fantasy Fest Queen Jodyrae Campbell.<\/p>\n
The newly crowned Royal Court will appear at multiple 2025 Fantasy Fest events and serve as imperial ambassadors until the 2026 competition, and as Emeritus Royalty in perpetuity.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s \u201cBedtime Stories & Magical Monsters\u201d themed Fantasy Fest features more than 100 events including Goombay Festival, the wildly enchanting Pet Masquerade, the Captain Morgan Masquerade March, and the world famous Deep Eddy Vodka Fantasy Fest Parade.<\/p>\nIn fewer than eight weeks, the four candidates for king and queen of Fantasy Fest raised a stunning $353,538 for the Florida Keys SPCA. LARRY BLACKBURN\/Keys Weekly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nCindy Bensen, left, and Joe Wooten, right, attained royalty status on Friday night, as they were crowned King and Queen of Fantasy Fest. LARRY BLACKBURN\/Keys Weekly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMina Valdez and Floyd Jenkins are the duchess and duke of Fantasy Fest, respectively. LARRY BLACKBURN\/Keys Weekly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source keysweekly.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Key West Fantasy Fest\u2019s new royal court was crowned at a Royal Coronation event at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater on Oct. 17. From left, Duchess Mina Valdez, Queen Cindy Bensen, King Joe Wooten and Duke Floyd Jenkins achieved their titles through fundraising campaigns that raised a total of $353,538 for the Florida Keys SPCA. CAROL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2115327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2115326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FANTASY-FIRST-ROYALS-RAISE-OVER-350K-FOR-SPCA.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2115326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2115328,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115326\/revisions\/2115328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2115327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2115326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2115326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2115326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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