Queen of Carnival Tatum Lady Reiss is an equestrian and world traveler, with deep Rex roots

When Tatum Lady Reiss reigns as Rex’s consort on Tuesday, she will wear a glittering crown and wield a bejeweled scepter as she beams and acknowledges cheers at the Rex ball.

Not long ago Reiss, 22, sat in her family’s Uptown New Orleans living room holding a golden crown, but it wasn’t glittering. Instead, it was plastic, and she had to inflate it to show it off.

Meet Rex 2025, 'a connector of people for the good,' a doting grandfather and Carnival's king

But no matter. That faux diadem, which Reiss’ father, James J. Reiss III, playfully plopped atop her head, has become a cherished part of her history as Rex’s consort because it was the way Reiss’ parents let her know last spring that she was going to be 2025’s queen of Carnival.

It was hardly a conventional crown, but, then, she learned the news in an unconventional way – via FaceTime in  Rome, where the University of Arkansas student was spending part of her junior year. Her father, who was Rex in 2022, was calling from New Orleans, wearing a Rex lieutenant’s mask and plumed hat.

Her mother, Erica Ballard Reiss, who was visiting her and was in on the plot, gave her a box containing the uninflated crown.

“I was so clueless,” Reiss said. “I thought, you’ve brought me the wrong box. They said, ‘Tatum, put the crown on. Do you understand what we’re about to tell you?’

“My dad said, ‘We are asking you to be our 2025 queen of Carnival.’ At first I said, ‘No, you’re not,’ and they said, ‘Yes, you are the 2025 queen of Carnival.’

“I was genuinely very, very surprised and very happy.”

Champagne and oysters

One thing that makes her happy is the brand-new location of the Rex reviewing stand, which has been moved this year from the InterContinental Hotel to Napoleon Avenue, hard by Pascal’s Manale Restaurant, well-known locally for its old-school oyster bar.

“When my dad told me we were watching it there, I was so excited,” she said. “If they say, ‘Where’s the queen? We’re doing the toast,’ I’d be at the oyster station, putting oysters on crackers.”

That’s one of her royal fantasies. Another is the notion of exchanging the queen’s traditional spot on the reviewing stand to ride horseback in the parade with the vividly costumed and plumed Rex lieutenants.

“Wouldn’t that be awesome, the first queen to ride in the Rex parade?” said Reiss, an accomplished horsewoman. “I would do it.”

A family active in Rex

Wearing a white tweed dress and golden slingbacks, Reiss was sitting in a vast, sunlit room full of family pictures and Rex photographs and mementos.

There is an overlap between these categories because her family has long been active in the Rex organization. Besides her father, the 2022 Rex, other relatives have occupied spots in five Rex courts. Her great-grandmother, Alice Peak Reiss, designed Rex’s floats and costumes from 1954 to 1968.

With Reiss’ selection as queen came fittings for gowns, along with parties, photo sessions and instruction on how to receive her subjects and wield a scepter. Doing all that required frequent 9½-hour drives home from Fayetteville, Arkansas, during which she stayed alert by listening to up-tempo music by an array of artists, including Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin.

“It’s very different and out of the box from what I usually do. I kind of like that," Reiss said.

“It’s a huge honor, but it’s not about me. It’s about New Orleans and the Rex organization and the contributions that the Rex organization makes in terms of culture and charity.”

This period leading up to her 24-hour reign has been “just like a nonstop adrenaline rush," she said. “This is what I’ve been looking forward to all year. This has been my 2025 event of the year; it’ll probably be the event of my life thus far.”

An athlete and a student

It has been a busy life. She graduated from Isidore Newman School, where she played soccer and volleyball and was a member of the varsity track team, running the 100-meter and 300-meter hurdles.

At the University of Arkansas, where she is a member of Chi Omega sorority, Reiss is majoring in communications and minoring in the equine science of managing horse farms and their four-footed assets.

She honed her horse skills by spending a summer working at Gayle Benson’s Kentucky farm where thoroughbred racehorses are bred and trained. In Arkansas, she has volunteered at Equestrian Bridges, a center where horses provide part of the therapy for children with disabilities.

At this point, she is looking beyond Fat Tuesday because she has to start thinking about practical things like looking for work after graduation. Reiss, who visited 40 cities in 12 countries during her time overseas, wants to be a travel agent.

But that’s for the future. For now, she’s focusing on Tuesday,

“You have to take in every single moment and smell all the roses,” said Reiss, who has three wishes: “For everyone to be safe; for everything to go well all over the city, which I’m sure it will; and for this to be the biggest and best Mardi Gras ever.”