Retiring Queens

Veronica headed off tonight to "Silent Nights, Starry Nights" a benefit at the Hotel Captain Cook for AWAIC (Abused Women's Aid in Crisis), volunteering her time as a hostess. The Miss America program contestants had been asked to come and help, and for the first time in a long time, Veronica realized she couldn't wear a crown and banner :( She had just passed hers on last weekend! It was fun to realize that the other girls I was taking were both the girlfriend, that she passed her crown to, Sarah Lochner; and the girlfriend she had talked into doing the Miss Chugiak-Eagle River pageant with last year. The last two pageants they ended up 1st & 2nd, then 2nd & 1st respectively.

When I first reluctantly agreed for my daughter, Sarah Joy, to get involved in pageants about five years ago, I had no idea they could have such a positive impact on my girls. I feared issues of vanity or false pride, obsessions with weight and gaining a tendency of all around dissatisfaction with life. I have found that if, and when, any of these issues come up, they are rather self-correcting in so many ways... be it the other girls, the pageant directors, or themselves... pageants require more than anything else that these young ladies be balanced and have their heads on straight.

My girls that are involved have become more aware of who they are, and that includes awareness of both their strengths and their weaknesses. They are learning to grow, build up where they are weak, or otherwise compensate. They are discovering strengths they didn't know they had.

Through the requirement to build a platform, they are learning what is important to them, and start the process of growth from unawareness to thinker to doer. The Pageants offer them the moon in some ways. But then they also help them to find their legs and find out just where they stand ... and why.

There is only one thing I really still have a problem with? The two-piece bathing suits. Is fitness important? Yes. It should be a reasonable requirement. But honestly, the two-piece bring something unnecessary to the whole pageant thing. Sure, their humble beginnings were on the beaches and there were no evening gowns... but I tend to think it's grown from that.