By Cassady Rosenblum
Girls came from as far as Petersburg and from as close as “up the hill” to compete in the annual Tucker County Beauty Pageant held at Camp Kidd last week. They were there, they said, for self-confidence. For self-love. For body positivity. (“We’re all for body positivity.”) To prove the people who said they’d grow up to be addicts just like their parents wrong. To try out the notion “change begins where your comfort zone ends.” To prove to their mothers they could “clean up, dress up, and wear a crown,” that they could go from “grease monkey to beauty queen.”
On themselves, they highlighted cupid’s bows and darkened beauty marks “like Marilyn Monroe.” Over each other, they marveled. “Your face is angelic,” they gushed. “I love your cheeks.” Backstage, the youngest girls peeked out between golden streamers shimmering in the heat and smoothed unicorn skirts and fresh braids. “Do I look cute?” they asked one another seriously. There, too, the answer was yes.
Not far away, older sisters hovered. They reminisced about their own pageants, and all the silly dances to Aaron Carter songs they had done back when pageants still included a talent component. Rashel Cackley, sister to contestant Saria Pennington, 17 of Parsons, recounted her own coronation as Tucker County Fair Queen in 2010. “I just remember the jitters,” she said as she swirled blush onto the faces of the next generation. “It was just a beautiful feeling. It wasn’t prom or homecoming… it was your day.”
Standing alone before the judges during her interview, each girl came to life, or tried to. They liked roller-skating, they said. Hunting. Woodworking. Making peanut pie with grandma. Jumping off rocks at the swimming hole. Reading dystopian novels. Riding horses through Dolly Sods. Playing the ukulele, “even though some people don’t consider it a real instrument.”
“Do you know the song ‘House of The Rising Sun?” Pennington asked the judges, four former beauty queens themselves. Yes the judges replied. We know it. “It’s beautiful on the ukulele,” Pennington told them.
In the end, the judges scored the girls based on their poise, eye contact, projection, directness, verbal expression, self-control, and natural beauty. All components were weighted evenly, and while some girls sparkled, they were also docked for saying things like “it is what it is,” or fidgeting.
When the queens were finally crowned after 9 p.m., the stage glowed against the black, buggy night. In the Children’s Pageant (ages 0-6) Sophia Witemore won the title of “Princess,” and in the Tiny Miss Pageant (ages 7-9), Savannah Witemore won the title of “Tiny Miss.”
In the “Teen” category, Joanna Leary, 13 of Parsons, was runner-up. Kaylee Jennings, 15 of Parsons, won overall. “If I could be any color I would be white, because I’m delicate and bright,” she had told the judges, stealing their hearts with her floppy hat and easy smile.
In the oldest age range, Jesslyn McCaslin, a serene 18 year-old from Petersburg was runner up, having appeared in a cobalt v-neck evening dress and impressing the judges with her plans to get a business degree and convert the family pizza shop–now a Fox’s pizza franchise–into a restaurant of her own someday.
There can only be one queen, however, and in the final analysis, it was Kaylee Halterman who earned the crown. Halterman, 20 from Beverly, squealed as she received her sash, and thanked the judges as only a queen thinks to do. Halterman, who has competed in pageants since she was little, had dazzled the judges with her emphatic, polished answers, velvet burgundy evening dress, and lucid explanation of geocaching. She will now go on to compete at the state level in January for the title of Miss West Virginia Association of Fairs and Festivals.
As the other contestants hoisted their skirts and walked off the stage, they nursed disappointment, but pride, too. They had gotten out of their comfort zones, and they had learned new things. What surprised them the most about the experience? “That the other girls were really nice,” said Trinity Bever, 17 of Davis. “I thought they would be mean and prissy. But I would be friends with all of them.”
“I feel good, actually” she said, chin tilting upward, cupid’s bow gleaming into the night.