This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
This article was written by WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
Publisher Rebecca Barnes’ SEO game at Prince William Living Magazine is strong. Maybe too strong.
Type “Email Prince William” or “How to get in touch with Prince William” in your Google search bar and the contact page for the magazine appears first, with the royal family’s official contact page second.
So you can imagine what happened at the offices of Prince William Living Magazine, which covers Prince William County, Va., when news of Queen Elizabeth’s death broke Thursday afternoon.
Barnes’ office has received sketches, poems and an offer to make a casket blanket — in all about 35 emails and several phone calls.
A 16-year-old girl wrote to the magazine that she’s a huge fan of the royal family and hoped to score an invitation to the monarch’s funeral.
“I would love to come to her funeral, as she meant a lot to me. Although I’m sure you don’t let randomers in, thank you for reading this,” the girl wrote.
Another angled for a job as she gave her condolences.
“It’s been a dream of mine to work in your household for all of my life, as a housekeeper or something, I’m a very clean person, I always have everything spotless,” she wrote.
While the volume of correspondence has increased with the death of the queen, messages for the royal family are nothing new for the magazine, which receives at least one email a week meant for Prince William, the person, or his family.
It’s been Barnes’ policy not to respond, but sometimes she can’t help herself.
One writer asked if he could be the next King of England.
“I wrote back and asked him to submit an application,” she said.
By the way, Prince William County is named for William Augustus, the second son of King George II, and was bestowed the name when the county was formed in 1731.
