Pageant News Bureau - Tennessee moment

If you are not from Tennessee, the Volunteer State, you probably don't know much about it. You can't find it on a map. You don't know Nashville from Knoxville. You don't know who came first, Andrew Jackson or Andrew Johnson. You are Tennessee-illiterate.

You ignoramus! (Sorry to get so personal.)

We don't have time to teach a full course, but we can give you the basic facts. On a U.S. map, Tennessee is the long state between North Carolina and Arkansas. Knoxville is east of Nashville. Andrew Jackson came first.

Alicia Selby

If you are a person who's satisfied with the basics, you have probably learned enough about Tennessee. Most people you meet on the street are not going to hit you with a quiz about it. But if you want to look like a Tennessee expert, and need advice on faking it, we have something more for you.

It's a bit of pageant information that is so detailed and so strange-sounding that people will think you have been following developments in Tennessee all your life.

Here it is, as originally published by PNB:

In June 2000, Miss Tennessee America 1999, Allison Leigh Alderson of Jackson, crowned Julia Beth Hood as Miss Tennessee America 2000. Pageant history was repeated Oct. 19, 2002, when Ms. Alderson, 25, now the outgoing Miss Tennessee USA 2002, crowned Ms. Hood of Cleveland as Miss Tennessee USA 2003 at the conclusion of the annual Miss Tennessee USA Pageant in Clarksville.

And here's a commentary, to be delivered with your voice growing slightly excited toward the end:

"This is a harmonic convergence, pageant-style. It's rare that a woman represents her state in both the Miss America and Miss USA pageants. It's even rarer to have two women do it within a brief period of years. It is downright incredible of to see them pass the crown between themselves in both systems. Only in Tennessee!"

Then hit them with one more fact. Alicia Selby was crowned Miss Tennessee Teen USA the same night.

Your friends will be impressed. You will be the life of the party. And you will silently say "thank you" to PNB.

You're welcome.

A Tennessee moment