Pageant News Bureau - Shannon Hulbert

Miss Washington Teen USA

Photos courtesy of Shannon Hulbert

Shannon Hulbert lives in a small town in Washington state. It's a lovely, friendly town, where her family has deep roots. She knows everybody, and everybody knows her. She sounds happy just talking about the place.

But sometimes even a happy girl wants to travel in search of adventure. And for the past three years, this teenager has been doing adventurous work, modeling in such places as New York, London and Paris. People in those giant cities don't always know her name, but just like the folks back home, they love to see her face.

She talks about modeling as if anybody could do it. "My mother knew a woman who modeled," she recalls, "so I tried it." She got into pageants rather casually as well. She used to watch them on television, and just before her modeling career took off, she tried one and was crowned Pre-Teen Miss Washington American Coed. She was in the top 10 at nationals. A few years later, she ventured into pageants again, and became Miss Washington Teen USA 2001.

Ms. Hulbert always looks good. But to our mind, she doesn't always look the same. When you see her in a photo with her hometown friends, she's seems like just an assuming pretty girl. ("Which one is the beauty queen?") When she's in pageant mode, she has that all-American radiance that makes the camera turn to her. And when she's modeling, as in a French magazine ad, she's mysterious and alluring. Sometimes it's hard to look away.

This girl wants to be a politician. It may seem like a waste of a bright young beauty, but she has idealistic motives. "I don't want politics to have such a bad name," she says.