Author:
Trish Cooper (Perplexed)
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Date Posted: Friday, June 26, 07:50:17am
Author Host/IP: MAIL.FLOURNOYDEV.com/216.253.4.66
I never post messages on this board because as the auditor of the Forestry/Woodlands pageants I always want to remain neutral, to not have an opinion. However, after 7 years of dealing with “one bad apple” each year, I feel I need to “state my opinion”. I do not have a daughter so I have never been on the “competition” side of a pageant. I started working in the pageant systems about 20 years ago. I have judged, audited, co-directed, acted as seamstress, worked with publicity and dealt with parents….both good and bad. Pageants have a stigma related to them that is borne of just a few “bad” parents. For the most part, the parents that I have met and worked with through different systems have been great. They understand healthy competition and they know that on any given day, given three different judges, the results can be as different as night and day. Judging is simply an opinion. What I like when I judge can be completely different than what someone else likes. Some like a totally cool “perfect” child while I really prefer one that has personality and glows with happiness. Who is to say what is “perfect”? Why would we push our children to be “perfect”? To me the whole point of a pageant is give the girls self confidence, to teach them that just because you didn’t get the crown this time doesn’t mean that there was anything wrong with you, you just weren’t the “flavor of ice cream” that the judge was craving on that particular day.
You know, in all of the years that I have been working with pageants, it is rare that I see the girls being ugly. They normally go in, make friends and enjoy themselves. If they can’t have fun doing it, what is the point? In all most all cases it is a few select parents that get nasty and blame everyone and everything if their child doesn’t win. When you do see a child that throws a fit or starts talking ugly about other contestants, they normally have a parent that has taught them through behavior to act that way. Is that really what we want to teach our children?
Forestry/Woodlands is very special to me. I have worked with Carol and Kay from day one on it. I am not as “involved” with it as they are for several reasons, the biggest being that I want to be as neutral as possible. They have gone above and beyond to make sure that everything is as honest and straight forward as can possibly be. I sit up front when I do my tabulating so EVERYONE can see that the judge’s sheets go straight from them to me and I immediately enter them into the computer. One angry mother stated that the directors “hovering” over the auditor looks bad. I’m sure I do not know what she is talking about. Kay nor Carol ever “hovered” over me during any of the pageants. The only time either one even came near me was when I called one of them. Since this was a double header and we were crowing two complete Queen Courts, I wanted to make 100% sure that everything was completely right. The only other time they came near me was to pick up the results to take to the Emcee.
As the Directors have said, everyone that works with the Forestry/Woodlands pageants are volunteers. They get no monetary compensation for all the hard work that they put into the system in order to give young ladies the opportunity to help pay for furthering their education. Sometimes the volunteers have to put up with verbal abuse and accusations for all of their hard work. As for me, a simple “thank you for working so hard so that my child will have a chance to compete” will do just fine. Please keep your accusations and mean spiritedness at home. Please think of ALL the girls that are competing and what you are saying before you say it. My daddy used to say “put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion”. Nothing is ever worth hurting a child for.
I love being around the girls that compete. I love seeing their interaction with each other and the fun they have. The young ladies from age 4 to 24 that I have seen pass through the Forestry system are some of the brightest, most beautiful girls that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I have said it every year and I have never meant it more than I did this year when I said that I am very happy I was not the one judging and having to pick from those girls. The competition was one of the toughest I have ever seen. How blessed are we to have so many beautiful, poised girls in Alabama? How can ANYONE try to take anything from any of the girls that won? No matter who was picked this year from the girls competing, we could not have gone wrong. I think the Judges did an outstanding job with such a difficult task.
I have made this very long so I will wrap it up now. I would like to close by saying that everyone in the Forestry system from volunteers to Prelim Directors to State Directors works extremely hard to make State an enjoyable experience for all involved. We don’t like being yelled at, snapped at or accused of being “corrupt” but even after dealing with the few that persist in doing these things we still keep working year after year to build up the system and make it better so we can give these girls a good experience and help them on their way to a better education. This is only to the unhappy lady that “won’t ever be back”…..the next time you feel the need to accuse hardworking, honest people of being “corrupt” and to bash young girls that are completely innocent, stop and look at your on self and say a prayer that God will remove the bitterness that courses through your veins.
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Re: Miss Peanut
Re: Miss Peanut
Happy Birthday Alexa & Aliza Rodgers
I am confused....
NASTY MESSAGES ON MESSAGE BOARD
Little Miss Forestry
We Love You Micah!!!
Mrs Kay and Mrs Carol
CONGRATS ALONNA!
merry christmas every one
