Pageant News Bureau - Miss America 2005

The Top 5 at Miss America 2005 (left to right): Fourth runner-up Veena Goel of California, third runner-up Lacy Fleming of Arkansas, newly chosen Miss America Deidre Downs of Alabama, first runner-up Jennifer Dupont of Louisiana and second runner-up Kirstin Elrod of North Carolina.

An honest look
at Miss America (2005)

Photos by Joe Whiteko / PNB

September 2004: It was supposed to be a triumph. Miss America, celebrating 50 years on television, was newly stripped down (to two hours). The contestants themselves were showing more flesh and less talent in an attempt to reverse the decline in TV ratings. It was supposed to be the golden comeback year.

At the end of the show, the folks in charge reassured us that they had indeed struck gold. There were the standard perky proclamations, the kind where you fill in the blanks: "_ _ _ _, a cute, wholesome girl from _ _ _ _ who wants to be a _ _ _ _ and performed _ _ _ _, was crowned Miss America (but won't wear the crown)."

Julia Burton of West Virginia is a former PNB cover girl.

Erika Ebbel of Massachusetts, one of the brightest beauties we've ever met, points to a map that looks like her state's classic "gerrymander."

As in most recent years, the press releases resulted mostly in small newspaper stories and flashes of footage on the evening news. It all had a tired ring to it, just part of the journalistic background noise for a weekend in mid-September.

Of course, the establishment pageant publications declared, as usual, that this had been the greatest Miss America Pageant ever. And they had been a part of it! They even took you "behind the scenes" at this event, although all you saw were a few gowns you had seen before.

Then the truth hit, like a bomb. The TV ratings for Miss America turned out to be lower than ever. The highly touted "skimpy" swimsuits had failed to excite a viewing public used to naked love scenes and mate-swap reality shows. And the other gimmicks were even worse. ("Let's narrow it down to two girls, and then have talent performances!")

In October, the real blow came. ABC-TV, fed up with plummeting viewership, dropped the pageant that Hollywood moguls had once lusted after. For the first time in 50 years, Miss America was all alone on the stage, as the cameras were wheeled away.

But didn't pageant officials say this abandonment was really good news? Yes. How absurd! This pageant needs a dose of reality to save its life.

Reality is our business at PNB. So let's tell the truth.

Victoria Bechtold of Pennsylvania looked almost scandalously sexy, but sexiness counted for little.

For years, our relations with the national Miss America Organization were rocky because we persisted in giving them sound advice. Make it livelier, make it sexier, make it prettier, we said. They didn't listen. In our early years, they even denied us credentials because we wrote about other pageants.

For a while, they seemed to be getting a free ride. The promotional publications continued to crank out praise, and the mainstream media covered the pageant in some fashion every year. People who run newsrooms are creatures of habit, and September had become pageant month for most assignment editors. Cub reporters were routinely sent to Atlantic City and filed something about the latest Miss America gimmicks.

The elegant Lee Meriwether was the first Miss America of the TV era, and then built a successful career as an actress. She stands with her daughters.

Michelle LaGroue of Illinois is wacky and sweet. Personality to burn.

Amy Davis of Utah, dressed with a historic flair.

But trends can't be ignored forever. In recent years, the mainstream media began to cover Miss America in a new way, as an institution in decline. Everybody knew that fewer people were watching.

In September of 2004, PNB was graciously invited back to cover the contest, and we were eager to do so. Many of the staff treated us graciously. And we will always be grateful.

But on the crowning night, the show had the same disappointing dullness. And the atmosphere backstage was tense. Most of the tears were tears of anger. Contestants who were not evangelical Protestants complained of the group prayer sessions led by pageant veterans. One contestant grumbled that she would have been better off on the bikini circuit.

Most oddly of all, PNB photographer Joe Whiteko met interference when he sought to take a crowning photo, in our one concession to pageant tradition. But people who make a career of flattering the pageant rather than covering it were given the run of the place. It was a troubling image of inertia, not merely an affront to PNB but a danger to the pageant itself.

Jennifer Dupont, the first runner-up, competing in her third nationally televised pageant.

Olena Rubin of Hawaii, flower of the Tropics.

The 83-year-old grandmother of all pageants may cobble together some new TV contract, but nothing as good as it has known. And the situation at the grass roots is even worse. State and local contests languish in obscurity. Girls are drifting away toward more beauty-oriented systems. Miss America, which has always prided itself on being an American cultural phenomenon, is at risk of becoming a large hobby club.

How would we engineer a comeback? We would declare Miss America a beauty contest again, and start making beauty a prerequisite. We would make talent optional. We would continue to give scholarships, but never, ever talk about them. (Scholarships are dull, which is why nobody ever gossips about them.)

We believe that if contestants must have platforms, they should be controversial, and the women should have to defend them publicly. And we would ban gimmicks.

PNB has other suggestions, and we are open to dialogue. As the (self-appointed) conscience of the pageant world, we want to save Miss America.

In that spirit, we send this open message to the people in Atlantic City: Contact us at editor@pageant.com, apologize to Mr. Whiteko (our demand, not his) and ask us how your competition can be better than ever.

We will tell you the truth. And wouldn't that be refreshing?