Miss Georgia's Outstanding Teen Pagent

Yesterday, I watched my youngest cousin Lauren perform in Columbus for the title of Miss Georgia Teen -- she is currently Miss Historic Southern Plains. All 39 girls danced the opening number, "Living in America," in their red, white, and blue casual wear outfits. Then they answered an on-stage question, followed by a "fitness" competition and talent competition. Finally, they competed in the evening wear competition. These preliminaries culminate in the announcement of the top ten semi-finalists on Friday night and further competition for the crown, $2000, a silver tray, flowers, a limo ride, a picture with Miss Georgia, and other prizes.

A sampling of the "best" on-stage questions and answers, chosen specifically from the resume of each girl:

1) What is the most difficult part of playing golf? Concentration. I'm a social person, and it's really hard for me to focus on the game.

2) Where do you go camping? We go to the lake. We stop by the grocery store and buy a lot of food, and me and mama and daddy eat and play games and a just have a great time together.

3) Do cheerleaders really influence whether or not the team wins? I think every girl has to give 100% and each member of the team has to do her very best.

4) What do you hunt? White-tailed deer.

5) Why do you want to become an orthodontist? Well, I love the medical field, and first I wanted to be a surgeon, but then I thought about all the time away from home, and I decided being an orthodontist would let me spend more time with my family.

Instead of a swimsuit competition, the girls now wear a "fitness" leotard with a shirt they may purchase or make themselves -- the competition has nothing to do with actual fitness. I really liked that Miss Onion Capital's contestant had an onion on her shirt, but I was appalled that one contestant had a picture of herself on her shirt and another contestant wore an "I love NY" shirt.

The winner of the "most ads sold" in the program appears in 78 pictures on 24 pages. Unfortunately, that's all she's going to win.

A big surprise: the girl who stole the title of Little Miss Sumter Seedling from me sat in the row behind me at the pagent yesterday, and she had the audacity to come over and give me a hug. Of course, that was over 20 years ago, but I still feel a grudge.

A little background: my grandmother has eight grandchildren, and seven of us are girls. (She also has nine great-grandchildern, and seven of them are girls as we are a girly family.) Anyway, before my three younger girl cousins were born, I remember spending the night at Mommie's house with my sister Dawn, two older girl cousins Paige and Carla, and our second-cousin Dana. We had a pagent to compete for a crown that was actually a John Deere hat.

Later in life, Carla was the Sumter County Forestry Queen, and my sister was Miss Sumter Seedling. Twice, I lost the Little Miss Sumter Seedling title, and the second time I demanded that the judges explain why they didn't pick me. I guess we can't all be princesses and queens, but we can make fun of them...