GIRLS… I’M SORRY, GIRLS… CAN YOU please gather around here for a second? Please! This is important and I can’t let this slide.”
Ten minutes into our first practice for Miss Mississippi, and we were already getting a come-to-Jesus.
“Ladies, this is the Miss Mississippi pageant, and ONE of you will win, which means you will be Miss America or in the TOP TEN at a MINIMUM. Now, I cannot tell you who is going to win, but I can tell you this: The winner will not be wearing a square heel!”
“You! Miss Magnolia!” he yelled. “Come up here, please.”
Miss Magnolia stood next to him. “Ok, look at her leg. Long and lean with an invisible line to the floor.”
He pointed to another contestant. “Now… you… I’m sorry to call you out but look at this square heel! And I know you thought that getting a shade that matches your pantyhose was the way to go, but it is not.”
He turned back to Miss Magnolia. “Look at her leg in comparison to Miss Magnolia’s leg… Which leg do you want?
“Ladies, long story short, you need four-inch acrylic heels if you want to win this pageant. I call them pageant heels; others may call them stripper heels. If you can’t find any, I suggest you go where the strippers get their heels, and you will find gracious plenty.”
I leaned over to the girl next to me. “Who is this person?”
She shushed me before she said, “He is the choreographer, AND he was the apple from the Fruit of the Loom commercials.”
“You stop!” I exclaimed. Those Fruit of the Loom commercials were famous.
“Yeah, he was the apple AND he was Little Ricky’s best friend in I Love Lucy.”
And that is when I knew I was about to be on the adventure of a lifetime.
I might have thought I could win Miss Tippah County, but I knew that I was going to Miss Mississippi for one reason and one reason only—to observe and report! There were girls—and Lord bless them for it—who were there for the sixth time trying to make it to the Miss America pageant. I knew that I was a one-trick pony, so I watched every single moment and took in every piece of knowledge I could.
There were the fancy girls from Jackson who had debut balls and private schools. Their Junior League mothers raised them on the art of china patterns and Southern graces. I think those girls came out of the womb walking gracefully.
Not me. I had Martha Goolsby and a camcorder. She would record my walk and play it back: “Look—see? Your arms are swinging when you walk. You need to hold your shoulders back and you need to learn to walk in these stripper heels like they are house shoes.”
“Mom, where did you find these?”
She told me, “Don’t ask,” so I never did again. But when I got home from school, I immediately took off my school shoes and wore high heels until bedtime.
She also made sure I held my own in my interview. “Ellen, you need to be able to carry conversations with anyone and not be intimidated, so I have arranged for you to meet with the most intimidating woman we know, and you are going to talk with her until you feel comfortable in every room.” I knew exactly who she was talking about—my great-aunt Doris. She was my grandfather’s older sister. Until she passed, she carried herself with an unmatched grace.
Great-Aunt Doris was serious about these chats. Each week she clipped the biggest articles from the state and local papers, and we would discuss each one. I learned so much from her, but the best thing she ever told me was to always keep one hundred dollars in my sock drawer in case I needed to get out of town, and if my husband ever said, “You don’t make bread like my mama,” I should tell him, “You don’t make dough like my daddy.”
Hairdressers and makeup artists aren’t allowed backstage, so every girl had to do her own hair and stage makeup. I met with Ms. Sherri Bullard1 every week at her Merle Norman studio for makeup lessons. Sherri is one of the colorful Southern characters that every small town needs. The only thing bigger than her hair was her heart, and she always had a story about some crazy adventure she had gotten herself into. You might have had a Merle Norman in your town, but you haven’t lived until you’ve been to Ms. Sherri’s Merle Norman studio. She named hers Merle Norman and More, with an emphasis on the more. In the ’80s and ’90s, her studio was a proper ladies’ dress shop with the makeup tucked in the corner, and today, she and her daughter Natalie run the transformed store as one of the largest prom and pageant stores in the country, with the makeup still tucked in the corner.
After months of preparation, it was time for pageant week. There was one girl competing with us who might have been the only first alternate who had to perform the duties when the winner of her local pageant couldn’t. The winner of her pageant was in an unfortunate situation, and she knew that once everyone knew about her unfortunate situation, she could never do another pageant. But she just had to know if she could win her local, even if it meant not being able to move on to Miss Mississippi later.
Once the pageant had gotten underway and all us girls were getting to know one another, I commented to one contestant how nice the outgoing Miss Mississippi was, and another girl answered, “You know she smokes.” She was either jealous or from Jackson.
During a break, our conversation turned into how trashy Miss USA was in comparison to Miss America. This was 1995, and Miss America was still THE PAGEANT to win. It aired during prime time and on one of the big stations (which meant you could find it on the dial of your TV).
“If you really want to be in a national pageant,” the girl said, “Miss USA has no talent, but you have to wear a two-piece swimsuit. You don’t actually have to, but most of the girls do, so you’ll look like a granny if you wear a one-piece.” I’ll take voice lessons and a one-piece. I’m not doing a two-piece unless it comes with a biscuit.
Another girl chimed in: “You could also figure out how to do one of the other state pageants. Not Georgia, Alabama, or Tennessee, or any of the states around here,” she quickly clarified, “but out west…”
“Oh yeah,” another girl said. “I heard that some of those state pageants only have like twenty girls in them, and I think any one of us could win.”
Not this girl. My pageant experience can be described as “Here for a good time, not a long time.”
But the best moment of all—the one I will never forget—was THE PIZZA! God bless the Miss Mississippi organization! The night the pageant aired, they announced the top ten finalists that had been compiled from our preliminary nights. Those ten would compete in talent, evening gown, and swimsuit while the rest of us… ate pizza!
Piping-hot loser pizza was waiting for all of us who didn’t make the cut! It was amazing. I think some of the girls were in denial that they were eating loser pizza, but they shouldn’t have been. From the beginning, it was a two-horse race, a competition between Kari Ann and Monica. They were both as kind as they were beautiful and had talent to spare. They both had grace and confidence that only come with experience.
We put down our pizza long enough to perform our dance numbers and watch the winner get her crown. As predicted, it came down to Kari Ann and Monica, who were holding hands when Kari Ann’s name was called. Monica was the winner, and just as the apple from the Fruit of the Loom commercials predicted, she was top ten in Miss America. The following year, Kari Ann took the crown, and once again, just as the apple predicted, she was top ten.
No, I didn’t win that night, but sometimes the win is in the journey. That pageant taught me that one day I’d have the grace and confidence that come with experience. When my NON-PAGEANT time came, I’d be ready. I started that pageant a scared little girl from Ripley, Mississippi, and I left knowing I could talk to anyone, how to hold my own in any room, and how to elongate my leg in a swimsuit competition. No, I didn’t win Miss Mississippi, but I certainly didn’t lose.
1 Every special occasion, Sherri wore a hat the size of Texas and was the only woman in town that could pull it off. She could wear every color in the color wheel, and her long brown hair would flow from under the hat. One Easter Sunday, she was late to church, and when they sat down, her husband whispered, “We had to kill the bird,” referencing the feathers on her hat.