Pageant News Bureau - Janice McQueen Ward

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

Precisely her cup of tea

Janice McQueen Ward is Mrs. United States 1999-2000. She's the symbol of what it means to be a wife in the land of the free and the home of the brave. And her husband is . . . British.

Posing with other shipboard performers.

That's right. This American beauty didn't marry a Southern gentleman, a Connecticut Yankee or a Midwestern farm boy. She didn't settle down with a California surfer dude.

She picked a man from the "mother country," where people measure their weight in stone and drive on the left side of the road. She has even learned to enjoy cricket.

Is she guilty of treason? No. (We checked.) But the men who signed the Declaration of Independence would have been shocked to hear about an American queen marrying a guy from Redcoat country. For that matter, they would have been shocked to hear about an American queen.

While red-blooded American males may suffer a twinge of jealousy at Mrs. Ward's choice, we suspect that American women will find it rather romantic.

It all started on an ocean cruise. She was a shipboard song-and-dance girl, doing 14 shows a week, displaying the talent that had taken her to a Miss America state final. Tony, a dashing British chap, was a crew member on the same mighty vessel. They met, they made waves and decided to drop anchor in the same port for life.

On stage in one of 14 cruise liner shows a week.

Relaxing with other crew members.

The couple settled in the United States. He found work as an insurance executive (and part-time soccer coach). She became an operations manager, as well as a model and stage entertainer, playing every kind of role from Mary Magdalene to Daisy Mae. After a few years, she decided to try her hand at pageantry again. She was chosen Mrs. North Carolina America 1997, then Mrs. North Carolina United States 1999, and finally Mrs United States 1999-2000.

Her life sounds like an old MGM musical, full of drama, applause and backstage kisses, but she has a serious side. She has been involved in hundreds of civic and charitable events, especially those related to health issues. She is especially concerned with teenage violence, and is an outspoken supporter of gun control, a cause that remains controversial in the United States (if not in Britain).

Most of all, she says, she's still a "wife and a mom." She carefully manages her schedule to devote most of her time to her husband and their son, Cameron.

Even at home, however, Mrs. Ward can't escape the world of entertainment. Cameron is a budding film actor, working in the busy North Carolina movie scene. But there will be no shipboard romances for this Anglo-American lad, at least not for a while. He's 7.

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