For University queens, beauty is more than skin deep
May 2, 2009 by CHELSEA COOK
Filed under Variety
Bless his heart.
Miss Gwinnett County has a boyfriend. He may not have realized there are some responsibilities that come with that title.
“We call them pageant boyfriends,” said Jessica Black, the title-holder and University senior from Garfield. “Because there are some guys that get it and some guys that don’t. He holds my little marker when I have to sign autographs and takes pictures and stuff. He’s really supportive, I really appreciate that about him.”
Miss Gwinnett County also has a part-time job as a pharmacy technician for CVS, five finals next week, six more games where she’ll cheer on the Diamond Dogs as a Diamond Darling, bingo nights at a nursing home twice a week, graduate school applications to be a physician’s assistant – and she still doesn’t have her dress picked out for the Miss Georgia pageant this summer.
She’s not the only one. University students have 14 reigning pageant queens among their peers for 2009 – half of them will go on to the Miss Georgia pageant, whose queen could be crowned the next Miss America.
Between media appearances and 8 a.m. classes, interview coaches and all-night study sessions, these 14 women hardly are running on empty.
They are – on the contrary – mastering their time management and using every aspect of their busy lives as fuel for their journey.
Miss Southern Heartland, Laura Stone, just recently got into pageants because she was “freaking out about paying for college.”
This seems to be a common sentiment among the women – and even in the most dismal economies – there is a lot of scholarship money that comes with the crown. “I’m going to college for free this semester,” Black said. “I paid for college for free this semester,” Black said. “I paid for college in one night [of competition].”
Miss Warner Robins, Channing Wood, said her mother has had her in pageants since she was three weeks old, but the scholarship opportunities were always the reason for competing.
“I’ve gotten really lucky. My freshman year, I had money from my high school pageants, and through HOPE scholarship and pageants, my entire school career has been paid for,” the junior biology major said. “From room and board to these shoes on my feet.”
So who is funding all of this? Each crown comes with its own pageant board – a group of volunteers who typically get involved through the county government. In addition to the scholarship awards, the board allocates money for the queen’s dresses, transportation, meals, hotels and venue fees.
But the board also provides a lot of non-monetary support.
“Once we are crowned, it’s like an instant family,” Black said. “Our boards volunteer their time only because they love advocating this support for women . it’s nothing for them to call me and say, ‘Hey, how was your day? How were your finals? I heard you were really stressed out about that.’”
Lindsay Mann, Georgia’s Watermelon Queen, had a different incentive for competing for her crown. Mann is a “commodity queen.” This means she represents an industry in Georgia, and rather than a scholarship opportunity, her title is a paying job.
“This title is not about me. It’s about the farmers of Georgia – their livelihoods depend on this,” the accounting major from Tifton said.
“[It's] like a job in a marketing department, you get involved in politics, working with state representatives and making people happy at the same time. I mean, who doesn’t love a piece of watermelon?”
Mann will not compete for Miss Georgia this summer but will compete for the national Watermelon Queen title in 2010. Although it is not part of the competition’s criteria, the pageant features a seed-spitting contest.
Another reason women compete for a crown is to promote a “platform.” Black, who has been volunteering at nursing homes “long before [she] ever started doing pageants,” said her platform – the Alzheimer’s Association – is something she has experienced first hand.
“I can’t just walk into a school and say, ‘Hey, I want to talk to you about Alzheimer’s disease,’ and have people listen to me,” she said. “But apparently, when I have a crown on my head, I have something important to say.”
Briana Jewett, who was crowned Miss University of Georgia in February, said her platform is a big part of her pageanting because it hits close to home.
“A good friend of mine had a cousin, Lindsay Bonistall, who was brutally murdered in her apartment off-campus [of The University of Delaware],” she said.
Jewett’s platform, PEACE OUTside Campus, aims to promote off-campus safety.
“I’ve worked with landlords, realtors – simple things like changing locks on a door for new tenants, more blue light stations – that’s something I hope to accomplish by the time I graduate.”
Although every woman has a unique platform specific to her concerns and interests, collectively they are working to eradicate a problem plaguing pageants for years: the Barbie stereotype.
“Oh, that just drives me nuts,” Stone said. “People will tell me they’re surprised that I’d do pageants, but I think they’d think that for all of the girls [I compete with].”
Stone is a speech communication major from Waynesboro and took 20 hours of course credit this spring. She was also valedictorian of her high school.
“There’s such a diverse amount of girls, so I don’t think you could pinpoint one kind of ‘pageant girl.’”
Jewett, an exercise and sports science major from Atlanta said “breaking the Barbie mold” has been something she and her mother have talked about since her involvement with pageants began.
“I have never considered myself the typical pageant girl. You don’t need the measurements, you don’t need the platinum blonde hair, you don’t need the boob job,” Jewett said.
Miss Black and Gold Georgia, Tiffany Hobbs, went into her first pageant thinking it would be a “shallow experience” but learned quickly there was a lot to be gained.
“I got sucked in. I do set my standards high, but it’s not always about winning. Sometimes it’s just about being able to make it to the next round,” said Hobbs, a theater major from Augusta. “Because no matter what level you’re on, you’re going to go to so many different places that you’ve never been before, meet so many different people, and they’re going to teach you so much about yourself, more than you could even ask for. I really respect pageanting even more now.”
And get this – they’re not catty toward one another.
“People think we’re pullin’ hair backstage,” Jewett said. “Most people would be surprised to know that we’re back there dancing, with curlers in our hair, snackin’ on Snickers and helping each other put fake eyelashes on,” Black said. “We’re all just a bunch of nerds, really.”
But there are some pageant stereotypes that still ring true.
“You cannot, cannot, cannot, say it’s not fun to wear a crown. It’s a pretty, pretty princess thing and it sparkles so much,” Mann said. “And teezin’ hair to high heaven – I have never seen so many girls teeze so much hair!”
“I’m a huge tomboy, I have three brothers, I play in the mud, but I just adore getting dressed up and looking my best,” Black said.
“You’ve gotta get butt glue,” Stone said. “Spray adhesive from Wal-Mart will work, but if you have a wardrobe malfunction on stage, that is probably the worst thing ever.”
As glamorous as it all sounds, these beautiful women can receive some pretty ugly criticism.
Peggy Kreshel, an advertising professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, said it’s hard not to view pageants – particularly the swimsuit portion of the competition – as anything other than objectifying.
Kreshel participated in an industry pageant as a child and worked closely with a women’s studies graduate student who wrote a dissertation about feminism and pageants.
“It’s not that me, or feminists in general are against makeup, frivolousness or whatever, but [the swimsuit competition] seems like an opportunity to go back to the concept that women are important for what they look like, not what they do.”
The queens all said the same thing about the swimsuit portion of the competitions: It’s not their favorite, but it is an essential aspect of proving your confidence.
“It’s more about being physically fit, it really is,” Wood said. “It’s not about being the skinny girl up on stage. I will never be teeny, tiny skinny, I have soccer legs. It’s proving that you’re eating healthy and exercising every day, because being fit is hard work.”
Black said the swimsuit portion stems from the tradition of the Miss America pageant, and is therefore “promoting women.”
“It’s one of those things that is just so ingrained,” Kreshel said. “[The] swimsuit [competition] seems like a throwback to the older days, and that’s just not something we’re interested in anymore. But the Miss America pageant has a lot to counter-balance it, with the platform and the scholarships, and even the talent [portion] is fun.”
The University has a student population of nearly 33,000, so statistically, it’s only logical it’s produced 14 queens. However, Mansfield Bias, president and executive director of the Miss Georgia Pageant, said there is greater reasoning.
“When you think of it in terms of the best of the best and top students, most gravitate toward the University of Georgia,” Bias said.
“In the past 10 years, four [Miss Georgia winners] were UGA graduates.”
Black said it was only natural for highly motivated girls to go to the University because it takes a lot to get in.
“Not to toot our own horn, but we’re amazing,” she said. “I’m lucky to know them. While we want different career goals, we want the same things. We’re ambitious, we’re studious, on top of things – in order to compete in pageants, you have to be like that.”
So while seven of our girls will go on to the Miss Georgia pageant in July – a week-long endeavor sending one girl to Miss America – most of them recognize their pursuits and accomplishments as pageant queens benefit them beyond the crown-clad chapter of their life.
“I have never been nervous getting up in front of people or going to a job interview,” Black said. “[In pageants,] you will never go up against a more qualified group of people for anything.”
“It’s amazing the skills I can relate to as only a sophomore,” Jewett said. “These are things that will benefit me for the rest of my life.”
And if nothing else, there will always be the memories of the crown.
“I have these indentions in my head from wearin’ it all weekend,” Mann said. “It’s hardcore.”
