Kings and Queens of Geek Proms past are charged each year with the awesome task of choosing the new bearers of the crowns and sashes. The names and credentials of the 2011 judges are listed below to show that we're not messing around here.

Rachael Gilman is a poor graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, focusing on history, library science and museum studies. Her career goal is to be a collections manager at a museum and work in a basement all day. She founded the DND Club at University of Minnesota-Morris back in her "college days." She also does technical theater work like lighting, sound production, makeup and costumes. A Twin Cities native, Rachael also enjoys reading books, and says she is "striving to become a crazy cat lady."

James Ellingson is a social worker for St. Louis County and a memorizer of random, useless facts. He will play any kind of game, but favors strategy games like Stratego, Risk and Settlers of Catan. He’s had a video gaming system since age 8 and also digs cartoons and anime. Growing up, he was frequently mistaken for Jonathan Ke Quan (Richard "Data" Wang in The Goonies and Wan "Short Round" Li in Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom). In high school he played the trombone in band upon band — jazz, symphonic wind and pep. He was also in his high school chess club and plays a wicked game of ping pong. A bit of a hoarder, James keeps old electronics — cell phones, computers, cassette players, etc. — just in case he might need them in the future.

Lawrence Lee, the 2008 King Geek, was born and raised in Wapakoneta, Ohio, the hometown of Neil Armstrong. He started playing D&D in 1977 when players still had to use crayon to color in the crappy plastic dice. He learned BASIC on a TRS 80 and FORTRAN using a card reader. In high school he was salutatorian of his class, medaling in the state Mathletes competition and also serving as a library assistant. In college he studied physics, mathematics and philosophy, and worked as a civil engineering lab assistant. In graduate school he ran the A/V department. His current interests include HTML, blogging, board games (especially Settlers of Catan), World of Warcraft and helping his kids learn math (which he insists is fun). He works as a Presbyterian minister, and his study is decorated with a lava lamp, an original Chris Monroe painting and Star Wars paraphernalia. As Geek King he would like to decree for all time: “Han shot first.”

Shari Hartshorn is the 2006 Queen Geek. A science fiction and fantasy nut, Shari enjoys staying up late reading (or re-reading) a great book or watching sci-fi TV. Currently, she's enjoying Stargate, Doctor Who and Torchwood. She laments the passing of Farscape, Firefly and Invisible Man, and soon will "suffer great anguish when SG-1 finishes its stellar run." Shari loves to play the card game Munchkin, especially epic style with all the sets. She has worked at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and still volunteers there for Gaeltacht Minnesota, the Irish language group she's involved with. "Mostly we spend our time letting people know that there is in fact an Irish language and it is not just English with an Irish accent," she said. In college, Shari took more calculus than she needed, just for fun. She lives in St. Paul with a cat and five birds.

John Cavanaugh is the 2005 King Geek and may be the original geek. Growing up in the 1960s, this bookish boy was fascinated by all things science. He wore his horn-rimmed glasses proudly into his 20s, until his wife wisely updated his wardrobe. As a kid, he built both an analog and mechanical digital computer from kits. In high school, he built a semi-conductor laser communication device from an article in Popular Electronics. A wiz at all things audio/visual, John can thread a 16mm projector with ease. He served 20 years in the Minnesota National Guard, most of it as a weather technician. He is an amateur radio operator, a sky warn volunteer and a huge Star Trek fan (nicknamed "Spock" by his friends). While he was walking out the door to go to Geek Prom, his son remarked, "Gee Dad, it looks just like you're dressed for work."

Zoey Cohen is the 2004 Geek Prom Queen and also the 2004 Geek Prom female spaz-dancing champion. She is known around Duluth for collecting old socks to make sock monkeys. She asked a boy to her high school prom by wearing suspenders that she had written "Prom?" all over, and her first kiss was at church camp. Zoey is fascinated by hamsters, Tom Jones and puns, and has anecdotes to go with all three. 1) Her first hamster was named Hammie the Hamster. 2) She once won $40 singing Tom Jones karaoke songs in Thunder Bay. 3) Her favorite pun came in college. She had a friend who constantly wore slippers and another friend who teased her for it. When Zoey saw one day that the teasing friend was wearing slippers, she called her a slippocrite.