Behind the Headlines

By Paula Wethington

If you were in the audience during the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant Saturday at Monroe County Community College, you saw several other young women and girls in the audience with their own sparking crowns.

This is a tradition called “visiting queens,” and their introductions to the audience count as pageant appearances for the title-holders. In the Miss Monroe County program and many other pageant systems, any public event that a queen or princess attends where she wears her crown is called an appearance. That event is then included in her permanent pageant record of community service, platform promotion and publicity efforts.

Miss Monroe County 2006 Melissa Cousino was credited with 150 appearances during her “year of service.” That’s a huge number, considering the fact she attends Michigan State University and has to include the commute time for any appearances she does back home in Monroe County.

She’s not the only queen with a busy day planner. Looking back at recent local queens as examples, whomever serves as Miss Monroe County will make more than 100 appearances while she owns the title. This might be riding in a parade, reading stories to younger children, attending a charity event as a VIP guest, serving as a celebrity judge for another pageant, hosting a major fundraiser, … basically anything the queen and the pageant directors might agree on.

Some of them are mandatory appearances. For example, the Little Miss Monroe County contestants were provided with a list of eight required appearances that the winners will make during the coming year. But at the Miss Monroe County and Miss Monroe County Outstanding Teen Level, many events are arranged on the queen’s own initiative in promoting the pageant or her platform.

The first time I saw a Miss Monroe County queen doing an appearance (other than Miss America 1988 Kaye Lani Rafko Wilson’s celebrity visits) was when my daughter volunteered at a spring 2005 fundraiser for the Humane Society of Monroe County.

I learned a couple of days ahead of time that Miss Monroe County 2004 Kelly Smock was scheduled for an appearance. I told my daughter she should get Kelly’s autograph and pose for a picture with the queen since that was the custom during such events. We did get a picture and autograph, and we spent a lot of time talking with Kelly in between visitors and customers at the fundraiser.

“Do the queens have groupies?” I wondered after seeing more publicity about their appearances.

Well, yes. Those fans sit in the audience on pageant night! And sometimes the queen’s appearance does bring more people to an event.

But I’ve learned that what happened at the Humane Society fundraiser is pretty typical: my daughter and I were at the event anyway, so we made sure to visit the queen while we were there.

Now what’s really interesting is the word-of-mouth that happens afterward. People will save the photos and autographs and say to their friends, “I met Miss Monroe County at such-and-such event and …”

Which means both the pageant program and the charity event are part of the chit-chat in the community for some time afterward.