The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/16/06
Actress Delta Burke made a career out of pageantry both on and off screen. She held many titles, among them Miss Flame, Miss Optimist, Miss VFW Post and Miss Florida.
"I was a perfect beauty queen," she once said. "I was in pig heaven. ... I'd come traipsing into appearances looking like Snow White in a chiffon gown, long white gloves, the robe, the scepter, the banner, the big hair, the works."
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For college age women today, it's less about the crown and scepter, and more about money and opportunity. State, national and sometimes local and campus pageants can mean big bucks.
Despite poor ratings that pushed the Miss America pageant last year from network television to basic cable, interest in pageants is at an all-time high. About 700,000 pageants, with 3 million to 4 million contestants, are staged in the United States each year, according to pageant
center.com. Many are local beauty pageants, such as the Miss Fire Ant contest sponsored by the Ashburn women's club as part of the town's annual South Georgia city's Fire Ant Festival.
Others are elaborate, with evening wear, swimsuit, talent and interview competitions.
Winners can walk away with thousands in scholarship money, clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, the use of an automobile, and tanning and fitness center privileges. In addition, they are highly visible for at least a year, riding floats in parades and presiding over honorary events. The exposure leads to lucrative job opportunities for some pageant queens.
It's no wonder many women go to great lengths to win the crown, or fight to keep it like Terricha Bradley, who was asked to step down last week a day after being named Miss Spelman College.
"I have not and will not resign as Miss Spelman College," Bradley said after she was told the votes had been mistakenly tallied. As of Friday, Spelman officials had not said how they would resolve the conflict.
Pageants began early in the 20th century, most of them as beauty contests sponsored by local organizations. Miss America was launched in the 1920s as a swimsuit competition by an Atlantic City, N.J., businessman who wanted to extend the tourist season past summer. Over the years, pageants evolved to include evening wear, talent and interviews.
Segregated pageants
Many historically black institutions began pageants to recognize the beauty of African-American women, who were not allowed in most other competitions. Queens were campus leaders who worked to end racism and to uphold the legacy of their institution. Many campuses still stage elaborate coronations for the queen and her court and use the women as ambassadors for the school.
Spelman and Clark Atlanta University both select a queen to represent their schools. The all-male Morehouse College also has a queen. Women from Clark Atlanta and Spelman compete for Miss Maroon and White. It has been a tradition for 75 years, said Herman "Skip" Mason, the archivist for Morehouse College. At first, the queen was chosen by the football players. Later, she was elected by the student body. Now the school holds a pageant to select its queen and her court.
"She captures the feminine essence of the college," Mason said.
Miss Clark Atlanta University Jacquelyn Payne says she uses her position to tell prospective students about the historically black school. Payne, who is majoring in marketing, won a year of free tuition, room and board — worth about $23,000 — in the campus pageant.
"I'm constantly selling and marketing Clark Atlanta," said Payne, who also is the reigning Miss Fulton County and will wear that sash in the Miss Georgia pageant in June. "People say, 'Oh, you're the homecoming queen.' I say, 'no it's so much better than that.' "
Monica Pang, the reigning Miss Georgia, can attest to that. Pang, who was first runner-up in the Miss America pageant, has won $55,000 in three years of competition. She's spending this year on the public circuit, traveling Georgia highways in a pageant-provided Chevrolet, talking to Georgians about the future for America's youth. She already has three job offers, including an on-air spot at a Savannah television station, to consider when her reign ends this summer.
"It's a great networking opportunity," Pang, a University of Georgia graduate, said last week between speaking engagements in Griffin.
Many women, including Pang, compete in numerous local events in order to qualify for a state contest. Georgia has dozens of pageants that women can enter in different ways. A student from Fulton County who goes to school at UGA, for example, could compete for Miss Fulton County and Miss UGA. Some pageants have no geographic criteria and are open to all women ages 17 to 24, the age range for Miss America competitors.
Metter native Rebekah Rotton competed in five local pageants to qualify for Miss Georgia. She won Miss Georgia Southern University.
'A great sense of accomplishment'
"They call it the pageant circuit," said Rotton, 21, a public relations major at the Statesboro school. "You just get your bag of tricks together and take your show on the road."
Rotton said the experience has helped develop her public speaking skills, which she'll need in her career, and has helped build her self-esteem.
"It's a great sense of accomplishment when you look back on where you've come," she said.
Predictably, perhaps, many pageant queens go on to careers that put them in the public light. Dalton native Deborah Norville, a former "Today" show anchor and now host of "Inside Edition," was Georgia's Junior Miss for 1976. CBS anchor Diane Sawyer was Junior Miss America in 1963.
David Hazinski, an associate professor at UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, said the stage experience and public speaking opportunities are great practice for students who want to be on-air reporters.
"Most of the women who do this are very motivated. They're going to succeed in a lot of different areas," Hazinski said. "I used to look at them as twinkies. Now that I know some of them, not anymore."
Karen Tice, an associate professor of education policy studies and women's studies at the University of Kentucky, said she's found that feminism and pageantry are no longer necessarily at odds with each other. Women have evolved, and pageants have adapted, said Tice, who has extensively researched campus pageants. Competitions now often offer awards for contestants with the highest GPA or judge them in career wear, she said.
"Beauty pageants seem to be able to change with the times," Tice said.
Miss UGA Janna Gay has heard the jokes about ditsy beauty queens.
"It's not the first thing I tell people," said Gay, a junior public relations major from Twin City, who will compete for Miss Georgia in June. "I know there are stereotypes that come along with it. But the people that participate in it, they're better off."
TKPN
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