Queens For A Time -- Pageants Provide Royalty An Illusion Of Glamour, A Brief Experience In The Limelight

WINLOCK - It was one hour before the pageant. Miss Lewis County and the adviser to the Egg Day court were applying makeup and setting hair, a sweet cloud of hair spray drifting about them.

``I feel like Tammy Faye Bakker.'' Princess Lori Sobolesky was glancing in a mirror at the eye shadow curving above her dark eyes.

With brisk strokes, adviser Linda Mickelsen brushed color onto another princess's cheekbones. Suddenly, she looked around in a panic:

``Panty hose? Panty hose? We're missing one pair of panty hose and a bra.'' A Mickelsen son hurried home to collect them.

Taffeta rustled. Dresses slipped over heads. Electric rollers skidded across the blue bathroom floor. The door to the girls' restroom of the Winlock Miller Elementary School swung open and piano chords of ``Memories'' blasted in.

``It's starting!'' someone wailed.

``I have to go to the bathroom!''

Julie McClure, Miss Lewis County 1990 and pageant posture coach, suggested a word of prayer.

``Dear Jesus,'' she began as the four princesses clustered around her, ``help these girls to remember to lift and tuck, not chew gum or cross their legs on stage. And may the best girl win.''

In the amber light of the grade-school gym, four young women in bouffant plantation-belle gowns posed silently on the stage - waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting - their pretty young faces pinked, features highlighted with Maybelline and Mary Kay, lacquered curls defying gravity.

On the folding chairs in the gym, about 75 of their friends and relatives waited, too.

The outgoing queen, in a form-fitting, frothy, peach-lace dress, opened the envelop containing the winner's name, strolled across the stage with deliberate casualness, then turned suddenly and laid a bouquet of roses in the arms of 13-year-old Robyn Lewis. The crowd applauded.

It was the changing of Egg Day's royal guard, the outgoing queen crowning the new - a four-and-a-half dozen, er, make that 54-year tradition in Winlock, the tiny community of 1,000 south of Chehalis.

And repeated - whether for flora, fauna, fable or foible - all over the state.

Shades of storybook endings, Harlequin romances, soap-opera heroines and Princess Di. An illusion of glamour, peer recognition, the romance of roses.

All of them were part of mid-June's Winlock Egg Day pageant and others like them.

Whatever the means of selection, whether it's beauty, brains or button sales, they're also part of the hundreds of ``beauty'' titles - Cheese Day Queen, Weasil-Tail Pow-wow Queen, Egg Day Queen, Planters' Day Queen, Bear Festival Queen, Little Miss Friendly, Prairie Days Queen.

It happens early every summer. Young women don tiaras to promenade, usually weeping, down runways and lend their names to pageants, products and festivals - all for a brush with glamour, an imaginary sampling of the royal life - Cinderella, from the ashes to the Egg Festival.

But it's not all rhinestones and roses. Many work hard selling festival buttons, the sole method of queen selection for some pageants. Often there are year-long festival-related commitments that tie up many weekends.

Sometimes pageant titles come with hefty scholarships and career-molding opportunities - like the annual Miss Washington Pageant held this past week in Vancouver, or the upcoming Seafair pageant, July 31 at Meany Theater, where girls representing 23 Seattle-area communities and organizations vie for a $6,000 scholarship.

But in smaller pageants, the prize may be a percentage of the festival button sales, or simply a sash and/or a tiara and a memory to tuck away as a souvenir.

The experience teaches the young women responsibility, punctuality, as well as good grooming, Egg Day pageant adviser Mickelsen said. ``For most girls this is the only pageant experience they will have. We make them feel really special for the day. Some day they may need those skills. You never really know what steps in life you'll take.''

People in Winlock still talk about how a former Miss Lewis County, Sandy Marth Hill, became Miss Washington, then the weather girl for KIRO-TV and went on to a national broadcasting career for ABC-TV. (Hill's mother lives in Winlock.)

Robyn Lewis, who several weeks ago became the 54th Egg Day Queen, has no such aspirations. She plans to go shopping with the $500 she won for selling 1,251 ``Winlock Egg Day'' buttons over three months.

She and Shandy Weiher, 13, Lori Sobolesky, 14, and Heather Richardson, 14, were the top four in button sales among a total seven Egg Day queen contenders.

It meant weeks of staking out the Cedar Village Market and selling door-to-door just to make the final four.

Heather had been the runner-up in sales last year and was determined to try for the Egg Day crown again because she hoped it would help her establish a modeling career.

Shandy simply ``thought it would be fun to meet new people.''

Lori, who was this year's runner up, echoed Shandy's feelings, and Robyn competed in the memory of her sister, Shannon.

In March, Shannon Lewis died of complications from a heart-lung transplant.

``Shannon really wanted to run. It was really important to her,'' Robyn said. ``After the transplant she felt she could do it.''

Robyn took her place and her Egg Day odyssey of button sales, make-up and modeling lessons and shopping trips to Centralia began.

``I wouldn't run if it was just for me,'' she said.

After the coronation, the punch and cookies in the back of the gym and the flash-cube fire, it was time for royal rowdiness. Robyn, followed by an entourage of close friends, wandered into town, wearing her gown, tiara and velvet cape, sipping pop in front of the Handi Mart and hanging out on the corner of the elementary school until the teen dance inside was well under way.

The next morning brought an official appearance at breakfast and the spotlight in the Egg Day parade on a lavender-crepe-paper float that glided through the small town filled with cheering well-wishers.

They glided past the enormous fiber-core egg next to the railroad track that reminds visitors that Winlock was once ``egg capital of the world.'' They were followed by a shopping basket drill team from Centralia-Chehalis, and a singing group from Winlock's only grocery.

There were many small-town pretty girls - Napavine's Princess Napawinah Megan Lamprecht, 14; Vader May Day Queen Tina Allison, 11; nearby Toledo's Cheese Days court.

Floats were flatbeds pulled by pickup trucks - no floral decadence on wheels - and other units included candidates for sheriff and judge, marching groups from the American Legion and Veteran of Foreign Wars.

The nearest to a celebrity was Julie McClure, Miss Lewis County. In a dark blue sequin gown, she waved the flat-palmed wave of beauty queens from the back of an orange Mustang convertible and later belted out `` `Crazy,' my pageant song,'' on a stage set on the main street of town.

Julie wrinkled her nose when asked why she never ran for Egg Day queen. The Miss Lewis County pageant is a ``feeder'' pageant that sends contestants to the Miss Washington pageant, who may later go on to the Miss America pageant.

Competition there is on talent, appearance in a swimsuit, scholarship and the ability to communicate well - not on ticket sales.

Giving the title to the one who sells the most buttons does diminish the honor some, Missy Buss, 18, the outgoing Egg Day queen, admitted. But it was still an experience she treasures.

``I rode in three or four parades and when a business opens they usually have the queen there. But last year none of them opened,'' Buss, a Centralia restaurant hostess, said.

``It does make me kind of nervous because I'm not the real talkative type,'' she said. ``But I like to be reigning and up there and all that - the center of attention.''

Wearing a peach lace dress and a tiara in her cascade of honey-brown hair, she was escorted onto the stage by her friend Phil Wade, who wore jeans, cowboy boots and a carnation pinned to his plaid shirt.

While pageants aren't his thing, Wade said the Egg Day event is ``good for society - for morale.''

``We're all friends. It's a friendly competition,'' Lori said. ``Everybody says `hi.' Everybody cheers for you. Most of us, if we didn't make the top four would help others sell.''

Near the end of the festival, hair styles and dresses were wilting, and the gold letters were peeling from the white sashes.

Most of the girls had tossed off their high heels and were walking barefoot across the school cafeteria floor where their friends and neighbors gathered for the free egg-salad sandwiches.

Townfolk from other cities abandoned their floats and joined in.

As adviser to Toledo's Cheese Days court, Kay Lyon explained that her four princesses - whose queen will be selected in mid-July, based on button sales - ``don't have a lot to do, but it (the festival) gets kids involved. The girls set goals for themselves and try to achieve those goals. There's a certain amount of glamour involved with the crown and the roses, but on a small-town basis.

``It doesn't matter that the girl isn't beautiful and is 50 pounds overweight,'' Lyon said. ``Of course, there are always girls who do this who are beautiful girls.''

``Fairs need the publicity. All over they're becoming more commercial and getting away from the down-home country image,'' said Bill Thompson, a member of the Southwest Washington Fair Board, who drove a tractor pulling a float carrying the fair's ``Little Miss Friendly,'' Tricia Piper.

``If you come to the fair on the day of coronation you see grandmas and grandpas and uncles and aunts. You'd be surprised how many people five little girls can bring out,'' he said.

``It feels nice and good and stuff like that,'' Tricia, 11, said. Like other princesses in the Winlock parade she is excited about being honored at the Southwest Washington Fair on Royalty Day in August, when all the county's royalty attends, and ``getting to walk around with Miss Lewis County and the Dairy Princess.

``They're kind of famous,'' she said.

Is Tricia famous, too?

``Yeh,'' she said with a smile.

Most pageants are open to girls in junior high or older and often there are only a handful who turn out.

This year only two ran for Princess Napawinah, who represents Napavine's Funtime Festival.

As queen, Megan Lamprecht ``handed out trophies at the mud bogs - where trucks go. It was pretty fun.'' And, characteristic of all pageants, they had an exposure to beauty rituals and parties in their honor.

``We tried really hard to add glamour to it,'' said Debbie Aust, who with Diane Vlach, are co-advisers.

``Megan came to turn in money one night and was sopping wet from selling buttons in the rain. Now that's glamour!'' Vlach said.

Glamour was also questionable for the pretty Vader May Day Queen Tina Allison, 11, who in her tiara and velvet cape rode the parade route on the hood of a rusty, older model Chevy missing its hubcaps.

To win the title, Tina sold 191 buttons because ``I wanted to make Mom and Dad proud of me.''

One of the highlights of being small-town royalty is the trip to the governor's office.

And there are dozens of festival royalty who parade through the Olympia office and have their photos taken with the governor who proclaims the day as ``Egg Day'' or ``Apple Blossom Day.''

The Egg Day court looks forward to their gubernatorial audience, too, as another way to prolong the pageantry after the festival weekend.

Friday night through Sunday, Robyn cruised about town in her cape and crown, was gawked at, photographed and congratulated. With a shy smile, she summed up her feelings in one word: ``Embarrassment.''

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Many

communities

offer crowns

So you want to be a queen.

Well, no matter where you live, there's probably a title for you.

Here are just a few of the crowns available:

-- McCleary Bear Festival Queen, selected by button sales. They win: ``The right to represent our town.''

-- Skagit Valley Little Miss Tulip, girls 5 through 10, selection based on their ``vivaciousness.''

-- Puyallup Valley Daffodil Queen, selected by her speaking ability, talent, academic record. She wins a $2,000 scholarship. Duties: ``Spreading the Daffodil Festival story.''

-- Miss Washington, the premiere state pageant, feeds into the Miss America pageant in September. Judged on talent, appearance in evening gown and swimsuit, figure, poise, speaking ability. Wins: $3,000 scholarship, luggage, photo session, clothing, watch, three-month lease of a car, trip to the national pageant in Atlantic City, N.J.

-- Seafair Queen, selected by her talent, academic record, appearance, interview with judges and an essay. Wins: $6,000 scholarship. Duties: Visiting nursing homes, community groups, riding

CROWN

X XCROWNX X

on the Seafair float in major parades.

-- Miss West Seattle Hi-Yu, Miss Central Area Youth Association, Miss White Center, Miss Seattle Chinese/Chinatown are some of 20 titles given to young women who go on to compete in Seafair. They each differ in what they look for in their winners and differ in the prizes offered.

-- This year the former Miss Queen Anne title has been changed to ``Leaders of the Future,'' opening the contest to young men and women. Both win a $500 scholarship but only the woman goes on to compete in Seafair.

-- Queen of Pend Oreille County Rodeo, judged on horsemanship, rodeo knowledge. Duties include representing the rodeo at similar events. Wins: belt buckle, crown, ``right to represent us.''

-- Woodland Planters Day Queen, the community votes on candidates through ballots in the local newspaper.

-- Yelm Prairie Days Queen, finalists selected by button sales, the queen for her ability to ``handle herself in a ladylike way.'' All finalists win: tiaras, dresses, trip to Olympia to meet the governor, dinners with the Lions Club which ``tries to show them a good time .''

-- Wenatchee Apple Blossom Festival Queen, selected by a series of interviews, appearance, prepared speech. Duties: Making about 100 appearances as a festival representative. Wins: A $1,500 scholarship, clothing, including a wedding dress as a ``court gown,'' ``afghans and other merchandise'' from local merchants.

-- Sequim Irrigation Festival Queen, selected through impromptu questions during the pageant, prepared speech, appearance. Wins: poise, makeup and hair-styling sessions, $500 scholarship, clothing. Nicknamed: Ditch witch.

-- White Swan Weasel-tail Pow-wow Queen, selected through raffle-ticket sales. Wins: 20 percent of her sales, crown, shawl.

-- Cherry Sweetheart, selection based on letters of recommendation, activities and accomplishments. Duties: representing the Northwest cherry industry.

-- Pearl Princess, selected on ``radiance, beauty and charm'' to represent the Jewelers of America and Cultured Pearl Association of America. Finalists win: all-expense-paid trip to New York City, dinners, Broadway shows, cultured pearl jewelry.

-- Miss American Starlet, Miss Bathing Beauty and Mr. Beach Boy, Miss and Mr. Photogenic, Miss American Co-ed, Miss American Pre-teen, Miss American Princess, Miss Venus USA, Mother/Daughter Pageant and Mrs. Washington Pageant. These pageants charge from $60 to $500 to enter and often are franchise-selling businesses that offer services similar to modeling and charm schools.