Jocelyn O’Neill’s short and sweet reign as Queen of the Snows

Molly Guthrey, Pioneer Press
·6 min read

Over the last year, Jocelyn O’Neill has moved, made a job change and stepped into the role of Queen of the Snows.

That’s … a lot.

“I had a very busy year,” O’Neill says with a laugh.

At the start of 2023, O’Neill was crowned the South Wind Princess of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, one of four princesses of the royal family.

Later on, when a royal conflict led to Liv Swenson’s dismissal as Aurora, Queen of the Snows — a dismissal that Swenson and her supporters objected to and which the Pioneer Press reported on last summer — the runner-up was asked to step up to fill the 2023 queen’s proverbial “glass slippers.”

That runner up was O’Neill.

She had to consider the request, particularly since the queen is asked to make a significant volunteering commitment to the St. Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation — the nonprofit that produces the Winter Carnival — that continues after her reign (there are also expenses related to the role of queen).

The queen’s reign itself is a volunteer role with additional leadership expectations beyond the royal family’s appearances at parades, events, trips and many other commitments that extend beyond the 10-day winter festival and continue throughout the year.

“I wanted to ensure I could make that commitment,” O’Neill said.

A coronation as quiet as the falling snow

After O’Neill decided she was up for the challenge, it was time for a modest ceremony — nothing like the fanfare expected at Friday’s public event at RiverCentre for the coronation of the 2024 royal family.

That was fine with O’Neill.

“I wanted it to be a simple transition,” she said.

While it’s unusual for a queen to be replaced during her reign — the last time it happened was decades ago — princesses occasionally need to step down and step up during the year.

“Historically, those are more modest ceremonies,” O’Neill says, “and so I wanted to follow that history with my transition to Queen of the Snows.”

The media and the public were not alerted to O’Neill’s sparkly event at Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul on July 26, but there were still guests in attendance beyond the royal entourage.

“A lot of former queens, a lot of supporters of mine — friends and family and my sponsor, Ideal Printers,” O’Neill says. “I’m not sure how many people were there, but it was a simple ceremony.”

As for the tensions in the first half of 2023 which led to this most unusual situation, O’Neill has no comment.

“I can only tell you my story,” she says.

Her story appears to consist of an 184-day reign busy with duties and completed with elegance; she says she felt supported and encouraged by everyone associated with the Winter Carnival.

“For me, it’s been a positive experience,” O’Neill says.

She’s glad to have met so many of her subjects.

“It’s not very often in a year that you get to meet thousands of people from all walks of life,” O’Neill says.

The importance of bobby pins

Typically, the newly crowned queen grants an audience with the Pioneer Press hours after her coronation, from the ornate lobby of the St. Paul Hotel, where the royal family stays during Winter Carnival. It’s a picturesque spot overlooking Rice Park in downtown St. Paul; sometimes, there’s even a fire blazing in the hearth as the queen, in her crown and winter-white attire, speaks briefly to the media before heading out on the royal carriage (a coach bus) with her royal entourage for a day of appearances at Winter Carnival events.

While the Pioneer Press interviewed Swenson in that lobby last year, we were not given access to O’Neill during the reporting of the second coronation.

In fact, we waited almost six months for our traditional interview. The setting for it was modest: O’Neill was stopping off at the dry cleaners after work on Wednesday when the Pioneer Press called for a pre-arranged time to chat.

It was a thoughtful errand the queen was running: She was getting the official royal coat professionally cleaned for the next Queen of the Snows.

“I want to make sure everything I pass down is clean and ready to go,” O’Neill said.

She was also preparing a gift bag of essentials for the new queen, filled with items like bobby pins, hair binders, pens, note pads and other everyday items that are useful for royal life on the go.

The bobby pins could symbolize O’Neill’s role in 2023: to serve in an unfussy way.

“Jocelyn showed an immense amount of grace as she stepped into the role of Queen of the Snows,” said Ashleigh Farrell, President of the Former Queens organization and the 2012 Queen of the Snows, in a statement emailed to the Pioneer Press by a Winter Carnival spokesperson.

“Her experience was truly uncharted territory,” Farrell said in the statement, “and the way in which she handled herself demonstrated courage, integrity and leadership. She has represented herself and the St. Paul Winter Carnival beautifully.”

Who is our queen?

Initially, all the public knew of O’Neill was from her brief bio when she was one of 11 candidates hoping to be crowned either Queen of the Snows or as the North Wind, South Wind, East Wind or West Wind Princess of the royal court.

(St. Paul might also remember her as the Rice Street Royalty Queen in 2019-20.)

O’Neill, now 28, grew up in Princeton, Minn., the middle child of three daughters, attending high school in Cambridge. Wanting to help people through social work, she has degrees from Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis., and St. Cloud State University.

Back when her candidate bio was published in the Pioneer Press in early 2023, O’Neill was employed as a child protection social worker and lived in an apartment in Forest Lake with her cat, Marina, and lots of books.

Now, the queen and her books and her cat have moved to Shoreview. Her job has changed, too: She works as an in-home mental health therapist serving at-risk youth and their families.

While O’Neill says she’s looking forward to spending more time focusing on her career in social work in 2024 (and playing more laser tag with her cat), she’ll be standing amidst the pomp and circumstance on stage at St. Paul RiverCentre on Friday night with one last task to complete as the 2023 Queen of the Snows:

“I will crown the new Queen of the Snows,” she says.

Royal coronation

The magic of the 10-day Winter Carnival sparkles with the royal coronation on Friday evening at St. Paul RiverCentre, where the new King Boreas and the new Aurora, Queen of the Snows will be revealed, along with the royal guards and the four Wind Princes and Princesses. The Pioneer Press will feature coronation photos as well as interviews with the new king and queen this weekend. Read all of our coverage at twincities.com/tag/winter-carnival/

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