EP’s Homecoming Dynasty: The Whitesides Make It 3 Kings In A Row

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — Homecoming royalty at high schools doesn’t often resemble the single-family format they’ve had over in England for the past 1,200 years.

But at Evergreen Park Community High School, the Whiteside family has created a modern dynasty of their own. Brothers Quincy, Jonathan and Jermiah Whiteside make up the school’s three most recent Homecoming Kings.

“Three years in a row? That’s got to be unheard of,” Johnatthan Whiteside, the middle sibling and 2022 EPCHS Homecoming king, remembers thinking once he found out via FaceTime that his younger brother Jermiah would complete the family three-peat earlier in the year.

Johnatthan and his older brother, 2021 EPCHS Homecoming King Quincy Whiteside, were both on their college campus at Illinois State University when their mom streamed for them live the announcement that Jermiah would join them as the 2023 EPCHS Homecoming king.

“We were ecstatic when he won,” Quincy remembers.

But pulling off a dynasty like this wasn’t on the minds of anyone in the family before Quincy’s initial win in 2021.

“I actually ran just for the fun of it,” Quincy remembers of his senior year, noting that he had not been part of any EPCHS Homecoming royalty in his three previous years as a Mustang student.

“I was shocked that I actually won… just really taken aback.”

Candie Davis, mom of the Whiteside trio, never expected any of her sons, let alone all of them, to become Homecoming King when they were growing up.

“I push education only,” she said. “All the extra stuff… that’s for them. When they did start showing interest in this, my only role was to tell them to be confident and believe you can do it.”

Quincy’s upset win in 2021 didn’t create any additional pressure for Johnatthan, everyone agreed. After all, Johnatthan had been part of EPCHS Homecoming royalty in years past and had been considered a considerable favorite among his classmates heading into the 2022 vote.

“With Johnatthan, what was funny to me was that he didn’t ask anyone to vote for him. He didn’t push the agenda and said, ‘if I get it, I get it and if I don’t, I don’t,’” Davis said.

But he did get it, and Quincy was actually in town for that Homecoming week in 2022 to pass on the crown to his brother.

“It was great because I KNEW he was going to win,” Quincy said. “I was very happy to have crowned him.”

Fast-forward a year, the pressure was more noticeable for Jermiah, however.

“My teachers, my friends, they all told me I gotta go win it,” the current EPCHS senior said. “It was our last one and I had to go for it for family pride.”

And when Jermiah’s name was announced as King during the Homecoming pep rally, the three-peat was complete.

Jermiah says he'll also run for Prom King come spring 2024, hoping to make it two in a row for the Whitesides in that column as Johnatthan won that one, too, a year ago.