Author:
Tom Moletteire
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Date Posted: 22:47:14 03/01/09 Sun
I think one of the things wrong with pageants today is that there is an overabundance of rules. Pageants used to be fun. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. When I was growing up in Orlando, there was a Miss Orlando in the early 70s who entered and won the Florida Citrus Queen pageant WHILE SHE WAS STILL MISS ORLANDO but after she competed at Miss Florida. At the time, both the Miss Orlando and Citrus Queen titles were pretty visible titles in the Orlando community and held a high level of prestige. The world continued to turn, the sun continued to rise and set each day, God's wrath was not wrought upon us and she carried out the obligations of both titles in exemplary fashion. That could not happen today. We take ourselves more and more serious while the rest of the world holds us with less and less esteem. I think our increasing rigidity has more to do with our decreased contestant numbers than CMN, cable tv, or whatever else you might think is to blame. With that said, for whatever reason, most pageant systems restrict their titleholders at any level from holding another title at the same time (be it in the same or a different system.) I am not aware that contestants are restricted from entering other pageants - they just can't hold two titles at the same time. It doesn't sound like the contestant you are referring to did anything wrong. She entered two pageants on the possibility that she might not win the first. When she did win one pageant, she withdrew from the other. Contestants withdraw from pageants all the time for all sorts of reasons. I think if we begin restricting a potential contestant's options once she enters a competition, we are going to lose an even greater number of contestants. I just don't think that serves either the pageant or the contestant. Just My two cents.
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