Pageant News Bureau - Miss USA 2003

Spectacular Susie

Massachusetts is where the American Revolution began. It's where the Industrial Revolution cranked up in the Western Hemisphere. And it's the place where a modeling agent once made a revolutionary suggestion to Susie Castillo.

The suggestion was that she compete in pageants. "But I'm a model," Ms. Castillo protested. Beauty contests were like quiz shows to her: She enjoyed watching them on TV, but she never considered getting involved.

Fortunately, the agent was very persuasive. Ms. Castillo went on to win the 1998 Miss Massachusetts Teen USA title. At the national competition, she won the Clairol Style Award. Now, a few years later, she's a "proud supporter of pageants," as well as being Miss Massachusetts USA. And she wants a new tiara to put on top of all that lovely hair.

Ms. Castillo lives in a historic mill town. The place fell on hard times for a while, but she's proud that it's making a comeback. Some of the abandoned mills, once desolate and dilapidated, are now being used as office space by "fancy companies."

She notices what's going on with buildings, because she has a degree in interior architecture and design.

For now, she works as an administrator at a country club, and modeling and pageants are still a sidelight. But she wants to wants to do more work in the glamour industry, and maybe branch out into acting, so she's thinking of heading to New York or Los Angeles.
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Ms. Castillo grew up speaking Spanish (her father is from the Dominican Republic, her mother from Puerto Rico). Her mother is always telling her, "Go out to Mexico and get into one of those soap operas!" It sounds tempting, but Hollywood is more her style. This girl is USA all the way.

Photos courtesy of Susie Castillo

Never at a loss

When Erin C. MacGregor was Miss Colorado 1999, she competed for the title of Miss America 2000. Now that she's Miss Colorado USA 2003, she's competing for the title of Miss USA 2003. Obviously the country's two most famous pageant systems do their math somewhat differently.

We tried to put Ms. MacGregor on the spot by asking how she would compare the two systems, but she glided past the question with the same grace that she shows in lyrical ballet. "Oh, they're like apples and oranges," she said sunnily. "You've got to have both in the world."

Maybe this girl should become a politician, you say. And perhaps she will. She is already known throughout her state as a motivational speaker, and she worked as as volunteer on a successful congressional campaign in 2002. She even went to Washington, D.C., at the beginning of 2003 to see her candidate sworn in. (We won't tell you whether he's a Democrat or a Republican, because the parties to us are like apples and oranges.)

While we're talking politics, let the record show that she once babysat for Vice President Dan Quayle and his wife. Ms. McGregor grew up in the posh winter resort of Vail, Colorado, where she learned to ski as a toddler, and she looked after the Quayles' children one day while the couple whooshed down the slopes.

Living in a jet-set destination like Vail taught Ms. MacGregor to take celebrities in stride, though she admits that the whole town was star-struck when Princess Diana came to visit. But she has poignant memories of another tragic figure, JonBenet Ramsey.

She encountered the little beauty queen at a modeling convention and expected big things from her. "She had such a beautiful presence, a brightness," Ms. MacGregor recalls.

Ms. MacGregor makes a point of using the initial "C." It stands for Caperton, the maiden name of her paternal grandmother, who was a big fan of her pageant career and died as it was beginning to blossom. The memory and the legacy are still very much alive.

Photos courtesy of Erin MacGregor

Goodness pays

Some towns are naughtier than they pretend to be, but Las Vegas is just the opposite. It bills itself as "Sin City," the place where anything goes. But most of the people who live in Vegas are the salt of the earth -- God-fearing, well-mannered folks who pay their bills on time, get eight hours of sleep a night and drink milk with every meal.

That's Ashley Huff, Miss Nevada USA. She's an old-fashioned girl, the youngest of seven children, the soul of sweetness. If she looked as wholesome as she is, there's no way she could ever be a beauty queen. Fortunately, she looks sexy. In the words of photographer Joe Whiteko, she's as hot as the Nevada sands on an August afternoon.

That searing heat is one of the things that Ms. Huff likes about Nevada.

Most of the year, it's warm enough for her to slip out of the city, relax in the sun wearing her bikini, then go cliff-diving into the cool waters of Lake Mead. It's like living in an Elvis movie, without all the songs (and, unfortunately, without Elvis).

She saw a lot of America before she settled down in the Silver State. She was born in Virginia, and lived for years in Georgia, where she was active in pageants. Her older sister Emily was Miss Hawaii Teen USA 1994. But when Ms. Huff began classes at UNLV, she realized that Nevada was her place. A couple of years ago, she represented the state at Miss America.

Like a lot of women in pageants, Ms. Huff once intended to become a broadcast journalist. Recently, however, she has changed her major to cosmetic dentistry. "I've always wanted to be an entertainer," she says, "but I've always wanted to be a dentist, too."

She could still change her mind and try an entertainment career. Or the Miss USA Pageant could change it for her. Either way would suit us. We just love to see a good girl make good.

Photos courtesy of Ashley Huff

Fashionably fine

Erin Haney was Miss Collins Hill High School 1997. She won at gown and interview, too. Big deal, do you say? Yes, big deal. Collins Hill is one of the largest public schools in Georgia, larger than most towns. It has thousands of girls, and she was the queen.

Five years later, Ms. Haney won another crown, Miss Georgia USA 2003. (She automatically became Peach Bowl queen as well.)

In between, there were a lot of near misses. She competed for Miss Georgia Teen-ager. She competed in eight Miss America local preliminaries, winning the swimsuit competition five times but never winning a title. She didn't get frustrated, she just got better.

But she was always doing other things besides beauty contests. After high school, she went to Bauder College. She graduated with a degree in fashion design after interning in New York with Vera Wang.

Now she works for Ted Turner's broadcasting empire. She personally tests products offered by would-be Turner sponsors -- clothes, cosmetics, even vacations at ritzy resorts. If she likes what she samples, she helps market it to Turner employees. That's a dream job, one we had never even heard of before.

Ms. Haney had a health crisis during her early pageant years. After suffering with scoliosis most of her life, she started getting much worse as a young woman. She had to undergo major surgery, with doctors implanting a steel rod in her back. She grew 3 inches, founded the Georgia Chapter of the Scoliosis Association and became a writer for the society's international newsletter.

She also gained a long scar that loops around her torso from back to front. She's proud of that scar, and she plans to show it off by wearing a two-piece swimsuit at Miss USA. Can a scar be sexy? We think so, and we certainly intend to find out.

Pageant photos by Benjamin Gibbs / PNB; top photo courtesy of Erin Haney; others by Joe Whiteko / PNB