Article from a Miss Maple City Judge

Judging beauty is not as easy as it looks

By ANDY PRUTSOK …#8221; Reflector Publisher | Wednesday February 06 2008, 12:16pm

I was one of the seven judges for Saturday night’s Miss Maple City Pageant. It was a first for me.

My family used to watch the Miss America Pageant when I was a kid — in the late 60s and early ‘70s, but I’m certain it had been more than 30 years since I had seen one.

I came in to the event with some preconceived notions about “pageant girls.” Namely, that they had all been primping and preening on stage since the age of three, knowing little else. And that they all likely had pushy mothers like Patsy Ramsey who were trying to live their lives vicariously through their children.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 11 young ladies who submitted to 10-minute interviews in private from the panel of judges were bright, articulate, poised and accomplished. Pretty good lookin’ girls, too. All were college students, working the pageant circuit to win scholarships to help pay for their education. Just about everyone held down several different jobs while going to school and not only participating in, but excelling at, various extra-curricular activities ranging from soccer to women’s rugby to dance and student government. They were pursuing master’s degrees and doctorates.

I was dazzled. In addition, I was unclear on what exactly to look for in judging the contestants. The instructions were nebulous.

Things got really dicey when the pageant part of the competition commenced.

The first event was the swimsuit contest, during which judges were supposed to look for how physically fit the women were. I did not do too well at this. They breezed across the stage in about 10 seconds each, hardly giving you time to find the contestant’s name on the list, let alone judge her physical fitness and ability to walk in four-inch heels.


I was somewhat shocked at my reaction to the swimsuit competition. I have a long history of admiring the female form — and these were all spectacular examples — but sitting there with 17-to-24-year-old women — children to a man of 46 — parading in front of me barely clothed, with hundreds of parents and children seated behind me — it was all I could do to not be totally embarrassed and feel like some kind of pervert.

I could not imagine how the contestants must feel, having to parade their bodies in front of all those eyes. It would take supreme confidence.

After talent, evening gown and on-stage question, the judges were presented with cards with the top five point winners. We had to rank them in about 30 seconds and the results were tabulated to pick the winner.

I was surprised when 18-year-old Heather Wells was announced as the winner, even though I had voted for her to win. I never pick winners in anything.

Feeling pretty good about my judging abilities, all the judges filed out of the auditorium into the room where we had conducted the interviews and left our personal belongings. Immediately, the four female judges — all pageant veterans -- formed a huddle and started complaining about the winner, saying her swimsuit was too revealing, she wore the wrong kind of shoes during the question and answer period and her toes were not pointed in the right direction during her dance routine. Then they began demanding to know who it was who voted for her. We had been warned that we might get accosted by contestants or parents, but not by our fellow judges. I gathered up my stuff and got the heck out of there, skipping the reception that was held in honor of the new Miss Maple City.

While the Miss Maple City Pageant may have been a little stressful for me, I would highly recommend to anyone in Norwalk who has not been to it to go to next year’s. The organizers put on a wonderful, entertaining production with lots of local talent performing. The time literally flew by.

Be that as it may, I can’t help but think my pageant days are behind me. It’s just too stressful. I’d almost rather parade around on stage in front of hundreds of people in a swimsuit than go through that again.

Congratulations to Miss Wells and all the contestants. They are all braver than I.



In my response to this, I have to say I'm not really surprised. It seems like some locals give great directions to judges about what to look for, and others don't. I also have to agree with the judge here about being accosted by other judges. I'm sure fellow blogger Abby Bollenbacher
remembers this experience: this summer we judged the Miss Montpelier, a small local pageant in Montpelier, Ohio. At the time I was the reigning Miss Ohio Coed for American Coed pageants, and I had been referred to judge by my director at the time, Janise Thomson. It sounded like a fun opportunity and a great way to promote American Coed. I felt that many of the girls in the pageant this summer would have done extremely well in American Coed,where the focus is on a well-spoken All American girl.

In any case, we judges all had some personal favorites after interview but I went into the final night acting as though I had never met each girl before and judging her only on that one category at a time. And I have to say, sitting behind the judges table, it was an eye opening experience for me. The things I noticed definitely helped me prepare for Miss Greater Cleveland over the summer. I noticed a girl's shoes, posture, and all of the things I probably don't pay that much attention to while competing on stage.

In any case, we were mailed information about the contestants prior to the pageant so we could ask them questions in interview. Some judges asked the same question for each girl, and others of us varied the questions.

It was hard not to be biased-and impressed- by the speaking ability of these girls.

Going into the final pageant, I knew which girl I had felt was strongest in Interview (and she ended up winning the interview award). During the final pageant, they forgot to turn her microphone on while she sang her song. Some of the judges next to me complained "I can't hear her" and while I'm sure the audience couldn't, we were close enough to pick up her voice. After she performed, the judge next to me was angry-and admitted that she was going to score the girl low. Three of us on one end of the table conferred that we wanted her to perform again, this time with the microphone on.

I came at this from my own experience: how would I feel if someone asked me to tap dance a second time because of some technical problem not my fault? Well, I'd be even more nervous, tired, and stressed out. I felt that it takes a lot of performance ability and confidence to take that stage a second time to perform for us. One of the judges around me admitted that she took points off of the girls talent performance because the microphone wasn't on. Obviously, a performer should check everything before going on stage, but we can't predict anything (please just ask poor Bobbi Mitchell, who was dancing on pointe with a ribbon dangerously close to ripping during her Miss Williamsburg performance). The girl in question was an 18 year old. This was probably the first time she had ever performed on a stage for that crowd of people (there were about 300-400 ticket sales that night).

At the end of the night, this girl ended up in 2nd place. This was her last year of eligibility and I really felt for her- I could tell from her entire performance that day that she truly wanted to represent her community. Another girl won, and immediately we judges were informed that the new winner was the sister of the pageants director. None of us judges knew this information, and there was no clue in our judging information that this young woman was a relative. But immediately you could sense that for her entire year as the queen, the new winner would experience a stigma. I believe that the 1st runner up was the hometown favorite, since she had competed in this pageant for many years, gave a solid performance, and was in her last year of eligibility.

right after the pageant, the same judge who admitted she lowered the talent performance of the 1st runner up was joyous over the new winner. I thought the new winner was great, too, but I have to wonder whether other judges "scored down" the 1st runner up with technical issues.

This is in no way to say that none of the judges were qualified- indeed we had a wealth of pageant experience. Coming from a judges perspective though, I was worried about the lack of direction some judges were given in MAO. Abby, correct me if I'm wrong, but usually pageants train judges saying "don't hold a technical malfunction against a contestant" but I don't remember being told that on pageant day.

In any case, after the pageant I was in a hurry to get out of there- judging was fun but you could feel in the air that some people questioned whether the winner really deserved it. Having been a runner up myself many times, I know how that 1st runner up must have felt : proud to have made a strong showing, but disappointed to see the title go to someone else. It certainly makes placing as a runner up easier when the girl genuinely deserves the title, and I felt like some people in the auditorium didn't believe the winner was truly who we picked.

After that experience, I have a lot of respect for judges who really go into these volunteer experiences and do their job- I feel like as a pageant contestant myself, I was really paying attention and making this day all about the girls.


So, for all those judges out there, I hope you receive good directions.

We appreciate you being so generous with your time and talents- I know it's a lot of work!

On a side note: Heather Wells and I placed 2nd and 3rd runner up at Miss Greater Cleveland respectively this summer, and I can tell you that she is a girl who genuinely loves competing, sharing her talent, and someone who believes in the Miss America organization. She was also very generous sharing her supplies and "zip-up" help backstage. So congratulations on your win, Heather-hard work pays off!