Top state-pageant coordinator has launched more than her share of Cinderella stories
MARK PRICE
msprice@charlotteobserver.com
DIEDRA LAIRD
Seminar attendee Kara Finley, 18,(left) of Fayetteville high-fives Paula Miles at a pageant seminar at the Embassy Suites hotel in Winston-Salem.
Slideshow Paula Miles at a pageant seminar
AIKEN, S.C. -- Careers of some of the nation's most beautiful women have been launched from Paula Miles' rambling five-bedroom home in the gated Woodside Plantation community.
Actresses, models, talk show hosts, singers, broadcast journalists.
All have one thing in common: They won beauty competitions staged by Miles, a wife and mother who reigns as Miss Universe Inc.'s longest tenured and most successful state pageant director.
Four Miss USAs, two Miss Teen USAs, one Miss World, and one Miss Universe made it to the top by first winning pageants produced by Miles. An additional 36 of her winners were finalists in those pageants, including five who were first runner-up.
That's a record, says Frank Sweeney, who hired Miles for the job in 1979.
"Forgive me for using a sports analogy, but she has had more kids in the playoffs than anybody else in history," Sweeney says.
"Her very first year, she had Shawn Weatherly win Miss USA and then Miss Universe. How's that for a home run? I know I was impressed. Her record is phenomenal, and what's most surprising is that not even she can tell you how she does it."
Miles is so modest that she refuses to be introduced at her pageants, the next of which is Miss North Carolina USA Friday and Saturday in High Point.
To her, this is a hobby that got out of hand.
She now runs six annual pageants in three states, and she's hoping to add a fourth state.
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