Several familiar names are joining the 2026 Winter Carnival as members of its Senior Royalty.

During the Jan. 15 coronation at Landmark Center, married duo John Erb and Teri Theno-Erb were crowned King Winter and Queen of the Northlands, respectively. Kitty Ryan will be Princess of the Four Winds.

Ryan’s Winter Carnival history traces back to before the annual festival celebrated its 70th anniversary, much less this year’s 140th — and, still to this day, she remains the only person to have ever held the title she once did.

King Winter and Queen of the Northlands

Teri Theno-Erb from Oakdale sings during the 2023 Klondike Kate contest at the DoubleTree by Hilton Saint Paul East on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Theno-Erb is a longtime Carnival volunteer, and previously was a candidate for Queen of the Snows in 2022 and Klondike Kate in 2023. A St. Paul native who now lives in Oakdale, she’s the owner of Teri’s Hair Studio in Maplewood and also served as the senior queen for the Woodbury Ambassadors last year.

In his candidate bio, Erb, also born in St. Paul, describes himself as “a longtime Winter Carnival supporter” and a regular volunteer at Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities—Christ Recovery Center.

Princess of the Four Winds

In 1952, when Kitty Ryan was 14 years old, she joined the Vulcan Krewe — still the only woman to have ever done so.

She got the gig, she told the Pioneer Press a decade ago, because she could twirl a flaming baton. And the teenager, who grew up on a farm in Goodhue County, came up to Boreas Rex’s domain alone.

Kitty Ryan, the first and only woman Vulcan, stands (top row, center) with the 1952 Krewe in this pair of autographed photos, hanging in the personal collection of former Vulcanus Rex Tom Barrett on Jan. 12, 2022. In 2026, Ryan was crowned Princess of the Four Winds in the Carnival’s Senior Royalty. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

“My parents were ecstatic, but they couldn’t come along — cows don’t milk themselves. I can’t believe I was 14 years old and alone in a hotel room,” she said in 2016. But as she tells it, that year’s Vulcan Krewe took care of her and ensured both her safety and adherence to a proper bedtime.

“It was like having seven dads,” she said.

Then, in 1956, Ryan was nominated as a candidate for Queen of the Snows, but there was one problem: She was engaged. The Carnival mandated at the time that Queen candidates be unmarried, a rule that persisted until the early 1990s. This put Ryan, an evident front-runner among the 26 candidates, in a gray area.

The compromise Carnival leaders offered was that they’d allow Ryan to be queen if she would just agree to not wear her engagement ring, she has said in interviews. She refused.

But now, seven decades later, Ryan is finally getting her royal moment.

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