Behind the Headlines

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

Last fall, my daughter Karolyn was a speaker for an awards program. Specifically, as one of the area’s Gold Award Girl Scouts in the class of 2007, she was asked to give a speech about her scouting experiences during the Huron Valley Girl Scout Council’s annual Women of Distinction awards luncheon in September.

I made arrangements to get her from her college campus in South Bend to Ann Arbor on the appointed date, and the two of us attended the luncheon.

Before lunch, my daughter and Jennifer Guerra from Michigan Public Radio, who served as mistress of ceremonies, went over their presentation notes. Various dignitaries, some of whom we had met previously, and some we knew only by name, came by to say hello.

After the program, I told my daughter it would be polite, since she was a speaker, to give personal congratulations to each of the winners. So we made our rounds through the room.

Keep in mind my daughter was the only one in the room wearing a youth Girl Scout uniform and had already given her remarks to the audience. As a result, she was easy to pick out in a crowd.

And yet, with the rush of friends, relatives and corporate sponsors to the award winners, we had to wait quite a bit for our turn to give remarks and a handshake to each of the honorees. “Congratulations on your award, it was nice to meet you,” … and that’s about all we were able to manage.

But we accomplished our goal of personally greeting all four honorees before everyone departed.

Now what does this story have to do with the business of being a reporter? (more…)

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

Miss America Kirsten Haglund, before her recent crowning with the national title, was trading platform ideas and information with Laura Serpetti of Newport, who has competed in the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant.

The two pageant contestants share the same platform: awareness of eating disorders.

You can read more on page 3A of today’s print and e-editions of The Monroe Evening News.

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

When I saw the Miss America Kristen Haglund’s homecoming schedule at www.missmichigan.org, I quickly realized three members of Miss Monroe’s royalty were on the VIP list for the Feb. 29 and March 1 events in Muskegon.

But I held off on a report until I contacted the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Program committee to make sure I didn’t miss anybody. Then I learned a total 40 people will be part of the local delegation. Wow!

A story with all their names and affiliations is on page 7B of today’s print and e-editions of The Monroe Evening News. In the meantime, here’s a salute to the local royalty who are officially part of the festivities:

• Melissa Cousino, who was Miss Monroe County 2006 and now holds the title of Miss Spirit of the State 2007.
• Cassidy Nugent, who was Junior Miss Monroe County 2006 and now holds the title of Michigan’s Little Miss.
• And, of course, Kaye Lani Rafko Wilson of Monroe, who was Miss America 1988.

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

For more than 20 years, Kaye Lani Rafko Wilson of Monroe has been known as “the last Miss Michigan to win the Miss America title.” (See “I just wanted to be me” at monroenews.com)

While Mrs. Wilson wasn’t in Las Vegas Saturday night to see Miss Michigan Kirsten Haglund receive her crown as Miss America 2008, she did get to congratulate the new national queen by phone that night. Here is how that came about: (more…)

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

Hey pageant fans, what did you think about the updated Miss America format?

Here is the Miss Michigan site and the Miss America site.

I will say the televised national finals made a lot more sense to me this year, after I’ve seen what happens behind the scenes at the local Miss Monroe County pageant.

This is a live presentation, and while we in TV land were sitting out the commercial breaks, you have to remember that the stage crew was pretty busy helping the contestants with all their costume changes; and other staff members were busy adding up the judge’s scores.

By Paula Wethington /paula@monroenews.com

OK pageant fans, tune in to the Miss America finals on TLC. Miss Michigan was the first semifinalist called!

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

There were lots of cute moments during the VIP reception Saturday afternoon at Ida Public Library with the Radio Disney Jingle Jam performers. During this event, fans had a chance to meet and get autographs signed by Sarah and Julia Ross of the band Everlife and soloists Keke Palmer and Drew Seeley. It was a very well-organized event, with lots of refreshments and an event staff who made sure all the fans got the photos they wanted.

Well, it’s not just the kids who enjoyed this event. It just so happened I was on the sidelines when the national celebrities met a local celebrity. Miss Monroe County 2007 Rachel McCleery was at the VIP reception. During a break in the line of fans, Rachel came up to the national stars’ table to introduce herself.

Rachel, according to protocol for formal appearances by the Miss America preliminary royalty, was wearing her crown.

So when Rachel explained who she was, Keke took a good look at the sparkly crown. “Can I touch it?” she asked.

After that conversation, Rachel, just like all the other fans, got her photo taken with the national entertainers.

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

When I was working on a feature story this summer about the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant (See The Road to the Crown and Private Interview Tough on Contestants at monroenews.com), I found it interesting that, despite the age difference, today’s contestants still look up to Monroe’s Miss America 1988, Kaye Lani Rafko, as a role model and example of what to do when you get the crown.

In the meantime, one of my co-workers, Jeff Meade, was working on a 20th anniversary piece about the legacy of Kaye Lani. You can see Jeff’s story, printed today Sept. 16, and the special section from 20 years ago about Monroe’s Miss America at monroenews.com.

By Paula Wethington

I grew up in a city where little girls didn’t typically dream of becoming Miss America. The preliminary contest in my hometown had an off and on production history, and I had only one friend who entered. And I had met Kaye Lani Rafko Wilson of Monroe, Miss America 1988, only once when I covered an event she spoke at in Ohio.

So the Miss America glitz and glamour were new to me when I moved to Monroe in early 2000.

I quickly learned the Miss Monroe County pageant was a big part of this community’s traditions and history – especially when I saw the reaction Mrs. Wilson got during an event I covered in Temperance.

One of my friends, Nancy Chorzempa, was a contestant for Miss Monroe 2000.

I told my daughter, “Come on, let’s go cheer for Nancy and see what this is all about.”

We bought our tickets, and a program so we could follow along. Someone gave us a noisemaker to cheer on our favorite contestant. My daughter and I did our own critiques of the talent routines and stage presentations.

But watching the pageant was like watching a sports game where I wasn’t familiar with the rules. When the finalists were announced, I knew there had to be more to picking the queen than what the contestants did on pageant night. What was it?

In recent years, I noticed that whomever served as Miss Monroe County attended an increasing number of charity events and autograph appearances. Dozens of girls were participating each year in the Little Miss Monroe County contest. And the teen division split off from Little Miss Monroe County in 2006 — so now there were three pageants.

I thought it was an appropriate time to do a story beyond the annual profiles of the candidates and queen.

But 2006 was too busy of a summer for me to take on a project. I waited until this spring to make the story pitch.

When I got asked, “What are you going to focus on?” I said, “I don’t know yet.”

My goal was to talk to as many people as possible and see what happened.

During the summer, I filled three reporter notebooks with notes from interviews and pageant rehearsals. The pageant board gave me two binders with pageant instructions and contestant profiles. And to get a feel for the local pageant’s history, I read through piles of clippings in our newsroom library.

The scene that I describe at the ending of the main story that will be printed in Sunday’s edition of The Monroe Evening News happened on technical rehearsal night.

While the contestants were in dress rehearsal, I was sitting at a computer, working on a story draft.

During the pageant production, I stayed back stage. I joked around with the stage crew and talked to the contestants as they prepped for stage appearances.

“Are you having fun?” several people asked me.

Yes, I had fun that night.

Then again, it wasn’t my daughter who stood on that stage, seeking a crown.

I was just waiting to get a quote for the newspaper.

By Paula Wethington

Here’s Miss Monroe County 2006 Melissa Cousino’s blog “And All that Jazz”

By Paula Wethington

Anyone who was in Southeast Michigan on the afternoon of Thursday Aug. 14, 2003, remembers the “big blackout.” This was a lengthy multi-state blackout that started in Ohio, and spread to the Detroit area and several other states to become the nation’s largest power outage.

Power availability in Monroe County was unpredictable – some people never lost electricity, while others were in the dark for three days.

Mercy Memorial Hospital canceled some surgeries. The Monroe Evening News had difficulties printing the next day’s edition. Local hotels and restaurants were already full with visitors because of a NASCAR race scheduled for that weekend at Michigan International Speedway. It was a struggle to put gas in the car, get cash out of the bank machine, or even make a phone call depending on your phone equipment.

The blackout happened a few hours before technical rehearsal for the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant. There were just two days before 12 women would take the competition stage at Monroe High School auditorium. And the afterglow reception, which is a fundraiser for the program, was scheduled immediately after the pageant at McGeady’s Town Pub.

In the tradition of live theater, the decision was made that the show would go on.

Dione Oerther, pageant co-executive director, remembered the frantic plans that the board members and volunteers made to save the pageant. “It didn’t matter what we had to do,” she said. “You had girls who spent all summer getting ready.”

The backup site was the high school’s football stadium, where the sunlight would be the spotlights. Portable toilets were ordered. The production crew tried to think of every detail.

The power came back on at the high school campus about noon Friday. While that did solve the immediate problem, there wasn’t time to arrange a complete run-through of the show.

The production would take the stage without final cues and timing worked out.

Bobb Vergiels, a pageant volunteer whose real-life job is public information officer for DTE Energy, put on an electric company hat when he walked onto the stage to announce the start of the show.

“Somebody called Edison?” he said.

That night, Jill McCormick won the title of Miss Monroe County 2003.

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.

by Paula Wethington

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer with the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant contestants to see what it’s like behind the scenes as they get ready for the production.

Yes, we do have some coverage in today’s Monroe Evening News and at www.monroenews.com. But that was on a quick deadline and it took a photographer with a digital camera, and two reporters on scene (one who had to leave early and get final results via cell phone from the other reporter) to pull those logistics together.

There will be more stories, so watch the paper and our web site for more peeks behind the scenes.

By Paula Wethington

The pageant night activities for the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant don’t end when the queen is crowned (which happened about 9:30 p.m. tonight – Saturday – at Monroe County Community College). It has become a tradition in recent years to end the night with an afterglow social event at the Welch Health Education Building at MCCC in which Miss Monroe County makes her first formal appearance and all of her court is introduced.

Some of the contestants changed into cocktail dresses for this event, others stayed in their evening gowns that were their attire for the second act of the production.

During the social event, little girls walked around with program books, asking the Miss Monroe County contestants “Can I have your autograph?” Miss Monroe County 2007 Rachel McCleery posed for more photographs, in addition to the dozens of snapshots that were taken onstage at the La-Z-Boy Center. The contestants had a dance with their escorts, and several special awards were announced.

The menu had the theme of “A Taste of Monroe,” with local restaurants and caterers providing cake, pop, pizza, fresh fruit, wings and meatballs. On one table, there were cookies that were shaped like crowns and stars – very cute!

By Paula Wethington

It was intermission time Saturday night at the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant. The contestants had already performed their swimsuit and talent pieces, and interviews with the judges had taken place earlier in the day. The contestants were in the dressing room, putting on evening gowns and touching up makeup for the second act.

And one of the girls said to no one in particular, “It’s almost over. It’s weird. I spent all summer preparing for this, and it’s almost over.”