European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 28, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A few words Here she the latest miss America by Dave Barry Knight news service Atlantic City is one of the few seashore resorts in the world that would actually be improved by the arrival of a major Oil its most attractive architectural feature is which arrive by the hundreds every Day to drop off thousands of who shuffle into giant casinos decorated by people if you let would install flocked wallpaper and ceiling mirrors in the sistine so its a glamorous Atlantic and hunkering right in the Middle of its like an enormous Concrete is convention this is every they hold the miss America which started in 1921 As a Mere publicity but Over the years has been transformed into a much bigger publicity last year it attracted More publicity than because of the Vanessa Williams Vanessa of was miss America until Bob Penthouse publisher and intestinal published photographs depicting her in acts of extreme naked friendliness with another naturally this caused pageant officials to take away her because it was very damaging to the pageants image As one of our nations most cherished Rural airhead around the except where i in sure people were huddling in Little groups on Street Corners and whispering could this be the end of the miss America pageant As we now know it so we journalists showed up at last years pageant in and at the daily press conference we asked so Many questions about the future of the Pagan that the casual observer might have thought after a while that we actually cared about the future of the which of course we we were just looking for ways to avoid interviewing the its not that there was anything wrong with the you its just that when you read through their official biography you Are constantly seeing statements like about miss Ohio her future ambition is to make a significant contribution to the lives of others through her television broadcasting and speaking or about miss Delaware i am not making these she enjoys giving her personal and this is the Field in which she or about miss Pennsylvania a great recent experience was a personal audience with Liza i dont want you to get the Reading these that the contestants have hair Spray for they do they Are ambitious and and i bet most of them Are a lot smarter than your state but for various mostly because they think it will help them in their they Are completing in this bizarre contest controlled by people who were apparently taking naps during the 1960s and people who still openly refer to 24yearold women As so the contestants act that but i got the impression deep in their they didst really take it i like to think after a Day of smiling like insane persons and talking about How they would very much like to help handicapped they went Back to their hotel rooms and unwound by smoking enormous cigars and spitting out the window onto elderly but if they had Normal impulses like they sure didst let on in Media at least not in the ones i the thing that struck during the As it has struck Many is that the contestants were not All that flagrantly in not saying that any of them needed Hartz reflective collars in saying most of them had the kind of face that was popular in before the discovery of ethnic were talking about a very Doris Day kind of but not necessarily a Beautiful Only one of miss genuinely had the ability to cause commercial aircraft to swoop Down for a closer this was not just my this was also the opinion of the reporter former miss America Suzette Charles stands behind the newly crowned miss Sharlene Wells of for the new York who helped me interview miss Mississippi on several despite the fact that objective journalists from major news Media institutions thought she was the most miss Mississippi didst this is because the miss America pageant is not a Beauty contest it is a scholarship pageant officials never tired of reminding us of As Sam a member of the prestigious William Morris Talent Agency and one of this years put it the girls All have extremely High we Are having a wonderful time with these girls because of their the pageant officials were always talking about As if the contestants whiled away the hours in the dressing room solving quadratic equations rather than smearing vaseline on their Teeth to add Luster to their in the Beauty contest it can take years to make it to the top first you have to win a local pageant like miss harmful and then maybe a regional and then a state along the you have to work constantly to develop the Best possible Allaround combination of the following scholarship which the miss America pageant judges will be looking for wearing quite a few continuing to smile in a Perky fashion even if somebody jabs you with a cattle prod and tells you your Mother is walking while looking sideways and having a knowing something about current events such As and to demonstrate their proficiency in these scholarship the girls compete in the pageants four main events evening Talent and a girl can win individual scholarships in each of these which Means even if she Doest win the Overall title she can still further her assuming she finds a College that will accept an evening gown Here is a summary of How the four main competitions work evening gown the girls Wear these gowns that can Cost upward of and look like something a medium priced Hooker might Wear to her the typical gown is in an electric Blue or with Many reflective surfaces and and it conforms very closely to the contestants bodily so that the Overall effect is that she has been swallowed up to her bosom by a giant tropical in the the contestant first walks up to the microphone and makes an evening gown for is the highlight of the entire for it is a Chance for each girl to say what is on her your typical evening gown speech should sound like the first sentence of the kind of letter you write to prospective employers when youve just gotten out of College and will say absolutely anything to get a Job something like As both a person and a human it is my future goal to fulfil my ultimate while also attaining those achievements to which i intend to dedicate myself to striving thank swimsuit what the judges Are looking for in the swimsuit of is also get a Load of the poise on miss is the kind of remark you often heard in the press Section during the swimsuit Talent mostly the Talent consisted of singing songs that were mildly popular during the Eisenhower interview this is the this is when the contestant goes behind closed doors to be asked questions by the it is very because you must remember that the miss America judges Are not just a collection of Hicks they Are a collection of washed up show business personalities and random they ask the girls about issues such As the constitutionally mandated separation of Church and the reason for this is that the judges know that the news Media will ask the new miss America just this kind of and god forbid she should answer i dont actually know too much about the constitutionally mandated separation of Church and for i have spent the last 11 years applying makeup and i was privileged to be sitting in the press area right next to the runway when this years miss was and although the press is supposed to be hard nosed and believe a stirring of genuine emotion swept through the press Section when we realized that the Concession stand had run out of White i watched miss Utah at her big press conference the Day after her and she did for one of the reporters asked her for her views on capital and As i understand her she said she was against punishment except when the person had done something very this is the kind of levelheaded opinion you want from your miss we in the press were mildly surprised at the Choice in terms of personal miss Utah is hardly miss she is hardly your the Only thing we reporters could figure was that she had impressed the judges with the fact that she is a devout mormon and had under any including her own been 20 stripes Magazine March