| P a g e a n t N e w s B u r e a u |
|
HOME | NEWS | PEOPLE | FEATURES
| INTERVIEWS |
 |
| P a g e a n t N e w s B u r e a u |
|
HOME | NEWS | PEOPLE | FEATURES
| INTERVIEWS |
|
|
Start spreadin' the news, I'm leavin' todayEmily Pollak, Miss New York Teen USA, has given up her crown and flown home. Tina Casciani has replaced her as the representative of the Empire State. State pageant director Randall Sanders confirmed the change to PNB, but referred other questions to national pageant representatives in Shreveport. Public relations specialist Mona Shah, reached in Shreveport, said Ms. Pollak had fallen ill and returned home. |
| 
|
Time travelerNow it can be told. Abby Vaillancourt, Miss Georgia Teen USA, is the girl behind the bubbles. This picture may seem an odd way for her to debut on PNB, but remember that the irresistible goddess Aphrodite sprang to life out of a mound of foam. (At least that's what it says on Aphrodite's birth certificate.)
|  |
 | If you guessed that Ms. Vaillancourt was the lather girl, perhaps you can handle this brain teaser: Ms. Vaillancourt works in an office. It takes her an hour to commute from home to her job, but she arrives at exactly the same time she left. How can that be? The answer can be found below, marked "Answer." |
 |  |
| Ms. Vaillancourt, 19, has a history of success in Georgia pageants. She previously represented her state at Miss Teen All American. Her Mediterranean looks are still slightly exotic for the South, and she is often asked whether she's of Latin descent, but she doesn't think so. "There's French and Polish," she says. "I'll have to research the rest." For years she has looked forward to a business career, and she is still planning to pursue degrees in business management, nutrition and exercise physiology. But lately she has been thinking about something more glamorous. "I'd like to be a model," she says, "I haven't done that. But I think I could learn." Don't learn a thing, Ms. Vaillancourt. Just keep smiling. Answer: Ms. Vaillancourt lives in Georgia, in the Eastern Time Zone, but works in Alabama, in the Central Time Zone, where it's an hour earlier. Photos courtesy of Abby Vaillancourt |
Sizing up the competitionA few months ago, a few Teen USA contestants had an early encounter. But is that a spy behind the plant?
Photo courtesy of Abby Vaillancourt |  |
Grown up just rightRenae Skogen was never in pageants when she was growing up. "I didn't even watch them on TV," she says. "I was a tomboy back then." |
 | But one day in 1999, while she was shopping, she spied an advertising circular for the Miss Montana Teen USA Pageant. And it almost seemed to be calling her name. "I said to myself, 'I should do this,' but I was embarrassed that people might see me taking it." |
| The tomboy had grown up into a young beauty, a girl with a fondness for dresses and dating and . . . crowns. She filled out the application and started preparing for her very first beauty contest. A few months later, she won the state title. Ms. Skogen, an aspiring surgeon who starts college in Illinois in the fall of 2000, is a part-time model. That in itself is not so rare for a beauty queen, but she has worked as a model for a sculptor, which is a bit more exotic. If she were to win in Shreveport, a certain artwork that we know of could become very valuable. |
| She's still a newcomer to pageants, but she's too philosophical to let the odds worry her. Even the swimsuit competition, which intimidates some girls, does not faze her. "It's easier than it looks," she says. "Remember, the other girls will be in swimsuits, too." And do you think beauty queens are lazy? Not in Montana. Ms. Skogen once helped install an underground irrigation system. "My pants got so full of dirt, I could hardly move," she recalls, laughing heartily at the memory. Deep in the soul of the beautiful princess, a little bit of the tomboy still lives.
Photos courtesy of Miss Montana Teen USA Pageant | 
|
More on Miss Teen USA 2000 ... |
| Miss Teen USA archive |
| P a g e a n t N e w s B u r e a u |
|
HOME | NEWS | PEOPLE | FEATURES
| INTERVIEWS |
|
|
| Copyright © 1995-2006 Pageant News Bureau, Inc. All rights reserved. |
