Oh, the Pageantry

Say, dear reader, did I ever tell you about the time I judged a beauty pageant? No? Well, now that I've got a news peg -- Miss Nebraska winning the Miss America Pageant last night -- it's time to tell the story, I think.

First things first: They're not beauty pageants, of course. They're scholarship pageants. I know this because in a previous life I was a newspaper reporter in North Platte, where the Miss Nebraska Pageant is held every year. And woe be to any careless reporter who used the disparaging phrase "beauty pageant" around a true believer, for his editor was likely to get an outraged call from said true believer and then said editor had to sit said reporter down and give him a little lecture about showing proper respect to events to which one was assigned no matter if he thought such puffery was hardly worthy of his considerable gifts as a reporter and certainly wasn't going to produce clips that would get him to the Washington Post where he was destined to win a Pulitzer Prize, and no matter that said reporter would rather cover, back to back, an all-day county commission road-plan meeting and a four-hour school board meeting to discuss textbook standards.

Not that I have any personal experience in such a scenario; I'm just saying it could happen.

So, it's a scholarship pageant. It just happens to not be open to ugly women.

But enough about that. You may ask how a guy like me found himself in a position to be judging the scholarly attributes of a dozen or so young women. Well, it's like this: In the early '90s, I was a newspaper editor. And being a newspaper editor, at least in the days when people read the newspaper, carried with it a certain weight in a community -- never mind that the job often goes, like many promotions, to a person who just happens to stick around long enough. That's how over the years, I ended up judging a couple of cooking contests, gave introductions for several prominent speakers and gave a few motivational talks to budding young journalists. ("You kids stay in school -- and stay the hell away from journalism," I would say. "Now, let me tell you all about a little something called the Internet that's coming." Pity no one listened.)

I even starred as Uncle Henry in a "celebrity" stage production of "The Wizard of Oz." Get enough beer in me -- one will do it -- and I'd be happy to stand up and recite my one line: "Em, Em, there's a cyclone comin'! Get to the cellar!" The review noted the unusual Al Pacino intensity I brought to the role; of course, I wrote the review.

And it was my capacity as a newspaper editor that earned me an invitation one year to serve on the panel of judges for Miss Southeast Nebraska, one of the preliminary contests leading up to the Miss Nebraska Pageant. My former editor thought this was richly hilarious karmic justice for a reporter who'd been less than respectful toward the finer points of scholarship pageants. For me, it was a reminder that God doesn't just work in mysterious ways; sometimes, he's just downright sick and twisted.

But duty called, and I answered. And I can say this: I took my responsibilities very seriously. Despite my jaded, sarcastic proclivities, I had by then learned an important lesson: To make glib fun of that which one does not understand but which is vitally important to others does not show sophistication and intelligence, but rather smug dickishness. Just as important, I also had learned by then that pageant zealots were one of two groups I did not want to cross, as there would be hell to pay. (The other group, by the way, is 4-H horse zealots.)

So, I swallowed my withering follow-up questions when several of the young women, in their interviews with judges, did in fact profess their hopes for world peace. I did not scour the backstage area for evidence of duct tape allegedly used to produce evening-gown cleavage. I effected a cool detachment when each contestant, during the swimsuit competition, paused a few feet above me on the stage and thrust her pelvis toward me.

And through it all, I took careful notes on the scoring pads I was provided: "1) Goal: world peace. 2) Cleavage quite scholarly. 3) Pelvic thrust reminiscent of Marie Curie's."

OK, so perhaps I haven't entirely learned the lesson I mentioned a few paragraphs ago after all.

I will say this, though: New Miss America Teresa Scanlan, just 17, of Gering, Neb., sounds like she's got it together all right: Her platform is eating disorders, and good on her for that. Unlike world peace, that's something a Miss America might actually be able to address. "I never passed up a cookie on my way here," she said.

And, when asked if she had a boyfriend, she grimaced and said, “I mean, 17-year-old boys? Enough said.”

Pro-cookie and skeptical about teenaged boys? I'd be happy to have her be a role model for my daughters.