Pageant News Bureau - Miss Virginia

Marvelous Miss Virginia

2007 will be the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown Colony, the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

Yes, Virginia goes all the way back to 1607, when Shakespeare was still alive. The fledgling village of Jamestown was the beginning of what would evolve into the United States of America. Jamestown gave us a record of the country's first queen -- Pocahontas. It started a process that led to Miss America itself.

But the whole thing didn't spring from thin air in 1607. Preparations took months before the first ship sailed from England. So maybe the real beginning of America -- and of Miss America -- was in 1606. And maybe the 400th anniversary is right now, in 2006. For purposes of this article, it is definitely so.

As summer heat wrapped the land of John Smith, Virginia crowned its contestant for Miss America. Her name is Adrianna Sgarlata, and she competed as Miss Arlington. She's a first-year graduate student at George Mason University. Her talent is opera. (Even that musical form was young in 1606).

Ms. Sgarlata's career ambitions are to be a professional opera singer and to continue as an activist for bullying prevention. Pocahontas didn't have a gown or a swimsuit. (She went naked, the story says.) But the young member of Indian royalty didn't like bullying, either. She stood up to her own father when he wanted to execute John Smith without proper cause. Even over a space of 400 years, beauties still have much in common.

Samantha Casey, Miss Virginia Teen USA, with Bootie Chewning, first vice president of the Miss Virginia Pageant

Meghan Miller, Miss America's Outstanding Teen (left), with Adrianna Sgarlata and Brittany Young, Virginia's Outstanding Teen 2006

Meghan Miller, Miss America's Outstanding Teen (left), with Adrianna Sgarlata and Elle Bunn, Miss Virginia Outstanding Teen 2005

Photos by
Joe Whiteko / PNB

If Pocahontas were still around, she would be a beauty queen. She would also no doubt be PNB's representative in Virginia. And by golly, she would have loved this pageant.