Pageant News Bureau - Hawaiian Tropic 2001

P a g e a n t N e w s B u r e a u

U.S. 2001 Finals

All photos by Golden Photography

From left, the winners are Jennifer Corliss, Lorrie Stewart, Kathy Pomponi and Crista Wagner

That's the ticket!

The presidential election of 2000 was the closest in American history. It took a month for it to be settled, and sometimes things got nasty. Candidates accused each other of cheating. Protesters yelled at each other in the streets. "Experts" yelled at each other on television. Judges accused each other of not knowing the law.

Is that what democracy is supposed to be? We say no. We believe that the politicians and the pundits could learn a lot from the girls of Hawaiian Tropic, who competed in the U.S. finals just a month before the presidential election.

In the Hawaiian Tropic campaign, the candidates all had charisma, and their qualifications were obvious. There were no butterfly ballots, no recounts, no lawsuits, no dimpled chads. The judges had fun, even without legal briefs.

The winners were Lorrie Stewart of Oklahoma City, Okla., Kathy Pomponi of Atlantic City, N.J., Jennifer Corliss of Superbowl fame in Atlanta, Ga., and Crista Wagner of Las Vegas, Nev. They will represent the United States in the worldwide finals.

It's too bad the Founding Fathers didn't think of something like this when they decided how to pick a president. It would do wonders for turnout, and it makes at least as much sense as the Electoral College.

Hawaiian Tropic archives

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