Pageant News Bureau - Fight Night 2002

Smile . . . and make a fist

Photos by Joe Whiteko / PNB

For years, PNB has celebrated Fight Night, an annual event that brings beauty queens into the boxing ring. In a brutal masculine arena of blood and sweat, these women are femininity personified. There's something electrifying about the contrast.

But not all battles are waged with fists, or decided in the ring. The pageant world itself is now locked in a battle for survival. 2002 is its "annus horribilis," its dark night of the diadem. As the great Jack Dempsey might say, "Things ain't goin' so good."

Moonlighting as cigarette girls, Georgia Tech students Laura Folk (left) and sister Katie pose with Atlanta firefighter Matt Moseley, cited for valor in a daring 1999 aerial rescue.

Kimberly Harlan, Kandice Pelletier, Cecilia Clark

From left, Kimberly Harlan, Miss Georgia Teen USA, gets together with Kandice Pelletier, Miss Cobb County, and Cecilia Clark, Miss Henry County.

The public is losing interest. TV ratings are trending downward. Pageants with long histories are tearing themselves apart through infighting, or looking for new owners. Some observers now question the survival of even the biggest competitions. Scandals abound, and the self-appointed defenders of pageants are as hypocritical and self-absorbed as ever.

So who's going to save the pageant world? PNB, did you say? Honestly, it's not our fight. We're writers, not pageant people. We can shout encouragement from the corner of the ring, we can hold the water bucket and the towel. But beauty queens will have to put on the gloves and do the fighting themselves.

No, we don't mean literally. The weapons of pageant women are beauty and charm, and yes, sincerity. The women of the Golden Age of Pageants may have had bigger hair and slightly bigger thighs than today's competitors, but they were genuine.

They were themselves, because nobody had convinced them they were supposed to be somebody else.

So, if you love pageants, become that person you pretend to be when you're standing onstage. And when people tell you they don't like pageants, tell them to go find something they do like, and please get out of your face. Stick up for the pageant world, because it's the world you chose. Be a fighter.

If you do, the girls of Fight Night will be watching your back. We'll be watching the rest.

Cecilia Clark, Miss Henry County, entertains the crowd.

Fight Night talent coordinator Lyndel Tucker of the Modeling Shop of Marietta shows off her troops.

Michelle Witzer (left), a Georgia State University soccer star and former Miss Georgia Fall Festival, poses with Abby Vaillencourt, former Miss Georgia Teen USA.

Georgia Tech twins, Katie and Laura Folk work as ring girls.