Pageants are so much more than …. just pageants

This past weekend was the annual Miss Watermelon Pageant and Tiny Miss to Princess Watermelon Pageant. It was fabulous; both pageants ran seamlessly.
I had the honor/pleasure of being the director of the Watermelon Pageants for many years and loved every minute of it. I can tell you from experience, that the women behind the scenes work VERY HARD to make it all happen. Please, thank them! Know that they are not getting paid to do the pageants and they truly do it for the love of the children and love for their community!
I want to give a shout-out to all the winners. The Tiny Miss to Princess Pageant was adorable to watch. All the children were precious and beautiful.
To the 2022 Miss Watermelon Queen, Amelia Grace Lovett and the Junior Miss Watermelon Queen, Lauren Davis – congratulations and job well done! Your next year will be filled with so much fun and excitement. Go forward and make your memories!
Through the years I have always heard so many people say so many bad things about pageants. Whether it be “too feminist,” or too “fake,” or that it’s about “beauty not brains.” Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I’m not opposing that, but sometimes I think that pageants catch the blunt end of the stick too many times.
During my teenage years, I entered pageants (hard and heavy) for six years, and then on-again-off-again for years after. My parents took me all over the place, weekend after weekend, to enter them. I enjoyed entering pageants. It was my hobby and my past-time. Had I been a boy, I would have probably spent my time fishing and hunting, and nothing would have been said against it. But since I liked pageants, and put my energy into them, people automatically assumed that I was stuck-up, self-centered, and self-righteous.
Why is that?
Pageants can (and do) teach young girls/young ladies many things.
At the age of 14, I could walk into a room of five to seven total strangers, sit down and spend the next five to ten minutes being interviewed and questioned. I knew how to sit properly, how to dress appropriately, I knew to look them in the eye, and I knew how to speak efficiently and effectively. (As a business owner, I can tell you that very few young people that come to a job interview do not even have a slight knowledge of how to do any of those things.)
At the age of 16, standing up in front of the local County Commissioners and speaking on behalf of newspaper legal advertisements was like candy, compared to the hundreds of people I had stood up in front of during my pageants. If you don’t think it takes guts and nerve to stand up in front of hundreds of people, draw an unknown question out of a bowl, and then answer it (without stuttering, pacing, or acting nervous in any way) then “you’ve got another thing coming.”
From the age of 14 to 21, I entered hundreds of pageants. Local, state, other states, and national pageants. I won a lot of them. I lost a lot of them, made Top 10, made Top 5. Win, lose or draw, I loved what I was doing and it was my passion.
When I was 27, I entered the Mrs. Florida competition (for “old married folk.”) All husbands had to go on stage to escort us, and the husbands were used as the “time killer” while we changed outfits. They had to draw a question and answer it. It was totally amazing to me (and the other ladies) how many men were totally terrified. More men spent time in the restroom, before the pageant started than I think the restroom could actually hold. They were all sick to their stomachs. Purely nervous.
My husband asked me, “How in the world can you do this? Aren’t you nervous?”
I think that was when it actually occurred to me what I felt, and how I felt about it. As I was about to step out on stage, and the butterflies were dancing in my stomach, I thought, “Yes. I am a little nervous. But dang this is fun!”
It wasn’t that I thought a lot of myself. It wasn’t that I was trying to make a name for myself. It wasn’t that I thought I was better than anybody else. It was just plain fun. Just like hunting and fishing is fun for some, just like playing golf is fun for some, and just like gardening and cooking are fun for others. I enjoyed/still enjoy pageants. And so do many other girls.
I would like to say “Thank You” to the many businesses that donate to the Miss Watermelon Pageant each year. It is because of each of you that these girls have special memories.
Life is short. Childhood is even shorter. Help a child grow and blossom, don’t squash her dreams and tell her it’s wrong for wanting to do something. It might not be what you would want to do. But so what? I truly believe that being well-rounded and versatile will go a lot farther in life than knowing every poet that ever lived, knowing what pie equals, knowing what the inside of a frog looks like, or knowing every single chemistry equation.
No matter what your child excels in…. softball, riding horses, basketball, cheerleading, hunting, fishing, cooking, or being the “Miss Watermelon Queen,” love them and support their dreams – no matter what!