Julie King, Car Queen

If you know who Julie King is, the first word that might come to mind is Trojanaire. She dresses in sporty clothes, her makeup is flawless, and at first glance you could possibly label her “girly.” I sat down with her expecting to hear about dancing, singing, makeup and her aspiring music career, but I learned so much more than how absolutely perfect her eyebrows are. First of all, she’s into astrology. She summed up her personality by telling me exactly what her signs are. Yes, that’s signs, plural. “I am a virgo libra cusp, with a rising sign of taurus and a moon sign of sagittarius. Rising sign of taurus means when people first meet me they’d think I’m a taurus… it’s like my outermost shell; and my moon sign is sagittarius, which is like, at my core, how I treat myself when I’m alone,” said King.Although I didn’t understand most of that, she was very talkative and comfortable being interviewed. Soon I learned that another one of her interests is actually cars. Looking at her and listening to her talk, I wondered… how did a gorgeous musician like her get into something as stereotypically masculine as cars? “I grew up in a family that loves cars,” King said. “I’m the first girl [in my family] that actually got into cars… I was best friends with some guys and they liked cars and I was like ‘oh, like that’s cool,’ and I wanted to understand what they were talking about.” This, however, can be dangerous waters for a girl. When a girl says she likes cars, it can lead to all kinds of obnoxious assumptions being made. “I don’t call myself a car girl because the car girl stereotype has a bad rap… It’s definitely a side to me I like to keep lowkey,” she said, “‘cause I don’t want people to be like ‘oh, you like new Mustangs, like convertible v6s.’” What King means by that is she knows more than just which new cars are shiny and cool; she’s taught herself a lot about the actual internal workings of a car. This begs the question, how can you get into the world of cars if you’re interested? “If there are any girls out there that kinda wanna get into cars but don’t know how, just go for it... Find a car that you like and google stuff about it that you’re curious about,” she said. “I want there to be a car girl I can talk to in Trojanaires… none of the other girls in show choir know cars, like I’ll wanna talk cars with somebody but the only people to talk cars with are the guys.”If you’re not sure if you can go at it alone, King encourages you to contact her. Trust me, she’s extremely easy to talk to, no matter who you are. “If you ever have any car questions, ask me… I want other people to know that cars are cool. I’m friendly, I just like being nice. I’ve always been kinda like a social butterfly.” Whether you want to talk with King about cars, makeup, cooking, astrology, singing, or any instrument known to man (she plays most of them), you can reach her on snapchat @jeewwlllzzzz, or on instagram @julie_ann_king. By Camille Jones