Miss Florida USA Ezine of October 15

October 15, 2004

2 Days until Miss Hollywood USA!

8 Days until Miss Panhandle USA!

Dear Miss Florida USA Fans:

Welcome to another edition of YOUR Miss Florida USA Ezine! YOUR information source for everything pageantry in the Sunshine State. Lots of fun around the home office this week! Our Miss Florida USA moved into her official apartment in South Florida courtesy of JPI Properties. Look out Broward as it’s time to start preparing for an April Miss USA pageant! Also the preliminary pageant system kicks off this weekend in Hollywood, how exciting is this? The road to Hollywood is open!

Now down to business at YOUR Miss Florida USA Ezine. A slew of entries in The Miss Florida USA Preliminary Reports keep our competitors informed on the state system. Pageantry In The News reports on bad news from the Miss America front. We also have an motivational edition of The www.PageantDiva.com Article of The Week. Only at YOUR Miss Florida USA Ezine, the only Ezine in the Miss USA system!

While your internet surfing, read our new column call Miss Florida USA Face & Places at www.MissFloridaUSA.com. This is a great place to catch up on past alumni as well as members of the Miss Florida USA Family in the news. Until next week here’s to great pageantry!

Grant H. Gravitt, Jr.

Executive Producer

Miss Florida USA

Miss Florida USA Preliminary Reports



OCTOBER 24, 2004

Miss Hollywood USA & Miss Hollywood Teen USA

@ Hollywood Beach Culture and Community Center
1301 S. Ocean Drive on Hollywood Beach
ATTENDEES INFORMATION                                                                                                   Doors open to the general public at 5:45 PM and the show will begin at 6:00 PM. General Admission $10.00 (includes program book) will be sold at the door! VIP Admission $25.00 for the first 30 people (includes cocktail reception, preferred seating & program book). You may order tickets in advance.

Your name will be put on the will call list. If you would like to pay by credit card, please contact Debbie in advance for processing. Evening attire is suggested. For more information, please contact Debbie at (954) 981-4378.

The www.PageantDiva.com Motivation Column

What's The Hardest Part? Getting Started, Of Course!

The great author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was once asked what was the hardest part of writing a book? “Getting started!” he responded!

How many things have you ever wanted to do in your life that at the moment you thought were great ideas but you never started? It’s a tough question. But now lets present a tougher one. What would it take to get you started? That is the $1 million dollar answer with no lifelines allowed.

Many great quotes can be used here but the best would be Mahatma Ghandi saying, “A journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step.” Millions of people have millions of intentions and millions of ideas and millions of brainstorms and millions of goals and have never followed the idea with a single step.

How many great ideas have you had? Answer: too many. There are two major and one minor factors (call it two and a half factors) that play a primary roll in taking that very important first step. Whether it is entering a pageant, beginning a profession, chasing a dream. One is the “Roll Over Factor”, one is the “I’m Gonna Factor” and the half is the “I Did Factor”.

The Roll Over Factor

The “Roll Over Factor” deals with your personal self-discipline and your personal dedication, which lies somewhere between getting things done and personal excellence. Your alarm goes off. You hit the snooze button and roll over. And the alarm goes off again and the process is repeated. Only this time you hit the off button and roll over. Thinking to yourself each time “I really know I should get up, but I just really don’t feel like it!”

An old saying goes “Oh sluggard how long will you sleep?” directly from the Book of Proverbs. The “Roll Over Factor” is the easiest one to explain because each of us has done it no less than a hundred times (in the past six months!) You know you gotta do it, you know you should do it, you’ve been thinking about doing it, and even more you’ve made a goal of getting it done. However at the present time you haven’t taken that first step! Many of you have gotten out of bed but still haven’t taken that first step.

Author’s Personal Experience

At one time in my life I was a very dedicated athlete. I would wake up in the morning, often before dawn, and would put on running clothes suited for the season’s weather. That first jog of the morning would be what would separate me from the other competitors and teammates was my motivation. Two miles, three miles, ten miles, whatever the physical fitness level I needed to be I knew where to push myself to be at peak performance. I never came back from a run that I didn’t feel great (by the way, running doesn’t help you live longer, it just seems longer!). But every run started with my desire for personal excellence and my self-discipline because it was not always easy to take that first step.

Then I retired from sports and pageants and I quit running. Hey, I had a good excuse (just like you do). I’m busy, I’ve got to speak, I gotta write my next article; I gotta make a sale; I got appointments; I gotta catch a plane.

Whatever the excuse is, they all came from the same place, “Lame-ville”! Lame! Lame! Lame! And now it’s up to me to take the first step and to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear (ok, not that long ago) where my running leads to the energy really need to operate at my highest levels. And to shed those extra pounds developed by not taking that first step.

The only way I will reach my goal, or YOUR goal or dream, is to take that first step. Just like you!

MISS FLORIDA USA PRELIMINARY PAGEANT UPDATE!

Miss Sarasota/Miss West Coast USA

*** We will have a workshop on October 30th in Sarasota's Southside Gym for our contestant competing in our November 20th pageant. It will include: Make-up Artist for stage and interview. Ted West how to get the best photo. Stage Presents and Interview.

                                                                                                                                                     This will be a valuable workshop for all our contestants. If you are not competing in our November pageant and still want to be a part of this great opportunity, you can pay a $75.00 fee for the workshop. Check out our website at http://www.flpageantsusa.com/.

MISS PALM BEACH COUNTY INFORMATION:                                                                        October 30th, delegates from Miss Palm Beach County USA and Teen USA will be at the Palm Beach Kennel Club helping the GPA (Greyhound Pets of America) promote greyhound adoption! We're going to have a great time and we'd love to see everyone come out for this event! It will be held during the Kennel Club's annual "Breeders Cup" race (their top race of the year). Of course, I'll get pictures to you as soon as I get them!!!

PAGEANTRY IN THE NEWS

No More Miss America Pageantry for ABC

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post

There she goes -- Miss America! Skimpy Speedos, a telecast shortened by one hour, and even the virtual elimination of all electric-fiddle playing in hot pants couldn't save Miss America from getting pink-slipped by ABC. The network yesterday notified the Miss America Organization that it would not pick up the show this year, leaving the pageant without a major broadcast outlet for the first time in 50 years.

While the pageant's acting president and CEO, Arthur McMaster, spun the franchise's new free-agentdom happily, telling the Associated Press they were "excited at the limitless opportunities that are now available for us to grow our brand," TV industry navel-gazers speculated this probably means the end of the Miss America pageant on a major broadcast network.

NBC, after all, has the Miss Teen USA, Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants for the foreseeable future because they are owned by Donald Trump, star of the most successful series developed by NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker when he was president of the entertainment division.

CBS got out of the pageant business in 2002, citing low ratings. And Fox already has its own beauty pageant; it's called "The Swan." ABC, which had carried the annual judging of women since 1997, had been committing to "Miss America" one year at a time.

Yesterday's news cannot have come as a shock to the Miss America Organization. A little more than a decade ago, the competition that started as an Atlantic City publicity stunt had copped about 27 million viewers; last month, it drew a record-low 9.8 million. And while that's about the same size audience as watched the two-hour finale of Fox's plastic surgery "beauty" pageant "The Swan," the median age of the Miss America audience is more than 51, while that of "The Swan's" viewership is under 37. And don't forget, the AP noted, that ABC had to cough up $5.6 million for broadcast rights to the pageant in 2003.

Of course, ABC, which took over the pageant after 30-year sponsor NBC bowed out, wasn't doing Miss America any favors airing it on Saturdays -- a low-viewership night the broadcast networks have largely turned over to series repeats. Newer networks UPN and WB don't even program Saturday nights. The Miss America Organization had been pressing ABC to move the pageant to another night.

THE ROAD TO BALTIMORE UPDATE

No titles were awarded this weekend but look for a whopping five titles to report on in next weeks Ezine. States in play are:

Tennessee

West Virginia

North Carolina

Alabama

Wyoming

For all the news, simply check back this page next week!

Click Here For The MISS FL USA Official Preliminary Calendar

Miss Florida USA Preliminary Directors Contact Info:

Miss SOUTHWEST FLORIDA USA - casey@dance-universe.com

MISS PANHANDLE USA/MISS GAINESVILLE USA/

Miss TALLAHASSEE USA/Miss EMERALD COAST USA/

Miss WEST FLORIDA USA/MISS JACKSONVILLE USA – sam@leadingladiesproductions.com

Miss CORAL SPRINGS USA– misscsusa@aol.com

Miss DAYTONA BEACH USA – director@missdaytonabeachusa.com

Miss HOLLYWOOD USA - pageantdirector@hollywoodjaycees.org

Miss SEMINOLE COUNTY USA/Miss FIRST COAST USA - DebonairInc@aol.com

Miss TREASURE COAST USA/Miss AVENTURA USA– telair@aol.com

Miss ST. PETERSBURG USA– director@missvermontusa.com

Miss POLK COUNTY USA/Miss LAKE BUENA VISTA USA - directors@winthecrown.com

Miss SARASOTA USA/MISS WEST COAST USA/Miss FT. MYERS– moden41@aol.com

Miss GOLD COAST USA – deltagrl02@aol.com

Miss SOUTH FLORIDA USA- Daphne.Angulo@ubs.com

Miss WINTER PARK USA/Miss ST. PETERSBURG USA/

Miss TAMPA USA- director@missvermontusa.com

Miss CITY BEAUTIFUL USA - MCBPageant@aol.com

Miss WESTON USA - info@KattyPulido.com

Miss Florida USA Preliminary Websites:

Hollywood – www.MissHollywoodUSA.com

Seminole County - www.MissSeminoleCountyUSA.com

Polk County/Lake Buena Vista - www.winthecrown.com

Tallahassee/West Florida/Panhandle/

Jacksonville/Emerald Coast – www.leadingladymagazine.com

West Broward - misswestbrowardusa.com

Palm Beach County - www.pbcpageants.bravehost.com

South Florida (Coconut Grove) - http://misssouthfloridausa.com

Daytona Beach - www.missdaytonabeachusa.com

Weston - www.kattypulido.com/weston