EUGENE — It wasn’t easy, but 25 years after the birth of the Society for the Legitimization of the Ubiquitous Gastropod (SLUG) and the crowning of Queen Bruce, the first Slug Queen, Eugene’s slimy bit of royalty is getting some respect.

Constance Van Flandern, a Eugene freelance graphic designer, loves the whole thing.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am about this,” she said over a latte at one of several businesses she has convinced to take part in the inaugural one-week Slug Trail.

More than 20 businesses are offering everything from slug-themed cupcakes to slug banana cocktails.

The Slug Queen will be crowned Sept. 5. So far, she’s the only candidate, but a handful usually show up. The Slug Queen Art Exhibition was added this year.

A Wall Street Journal reporter contacted Van Flandern and may have a story in the works. A University of Oregon documentary crew is working on a piece.

But she says the main objective is to try to bring the often-fractured city together.

Van Flandern was disappointed last year when voters rejected a $40 million downtown redevelopment initiative.

She says Eugeneans need to unite behind something. Hence the Slug Queen. The Old Queens who held the throne previously will pick the new one.

Queens’ projects have ranged from collecting food for a food bank to finding homes for homeless pets.

Her husband, Phil Scher, an associate anthropology professor at the University of Oregon, says she may break even on the sale of slug-themed T-shirts and a small slice of the profits from blown glass slugs, a slug-shaped coffin, slug balloon art and more from the art show.

There’s also a scepter shaped like a slug created by Eugene sculptor Jeffrey Weitzel, who is working on a bronze slug sculpture that the city’s Public Art Committee somehow decided not to put in a city park.

So Van Flandern is trying to raise $8,000 to put it in a rhododendron garden, where there are slugs galore.