» In Some Texas Towns, All Hail Their Queens

BY JESSIE MILLIGAN/Knight Ridder Newspapers

The Miss Gatorfest Queen is just one of many pageants that define small town Texas. However most aren’t nearly this dangerous!

FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) - It's a hot night when the rain comes, darkening the September sky above the Texas Hill Country and sending folks at the Oatmeal Festival scrambling to keep big drops off the paper plates of red velvet cake and pecan pie. The girls are there, 36 of them ages 4 to 18, and they've had the blow-dryers and curling irons going for quite some time. Everyone packs into the community center. The room is a blur of satin and lace, cowboy hats and ball caps. Neighbors and families stand shoulder to shoulder. They aren't about to let anything ruin the Miss Oatmeal pageant.

Around the nation, most agricultural marketing associations have stopped naming queens to promote beef, cotton and all the other blessings that come from the land. Texas's own Maid of Cotton contest was dropped about two decades ago in favor of more effective national broadcast campaigns, including "Cotton, The Fabric of Our Lives."

Yet in the rural lands, the places where food is raised or caught, the places where neighbors know one another, the cotton queens and peanut queens still reign. The community fall festival pageants sometimes struggle, sometimes thrive. Either way, the hair spray and lipstick still come out at harvest time. In the small towns of Texas, girls still save their Easter dresses and prom dresses for pageant day.

Miss Peanut, Gorman, Texas

"I am so proud to live in a town where people never give up," said Hollyann Wright, 17, in her acceptance speech. She is the winner and only contestant in this year's Miss Peanut pageant in Gorman, southeast of Abilene. Large peanut growers began following federal subsidies farther into West Texas in 2003, leaving behind this town that had depended on peanuts for more than 50 years. The town once known for smelling like peanuts no longer does. Hollyann, raised by a single mother, works at the Dairy Queen, gets good grades and plans to be a pediatrician. Her mother, Mary Reed, was laid off from her job as a peanut inspector. Some of Hollyann's friends and their families moved, following the peanut industry. None of this stopped Gorman from celebrating its former livelihood at its annual Peanut Festival in September. The firetrucks were polished to a shine by volunteer firemen. Politicians, beauty queens from other communities, Scouts and service clubs filled the street. Just when the parade seemed to end, the floats kept going - as if no one wanted the parade to be over. Every year, the floats continue miles out of town to the nursing home, where the residents gather outside, waiting to wave to the queen. Not even a major shift in the economy could stop the parade.

The Cotton Queen, Miles, Texas

She's wanted to be the Cotton Queen pretty much forever, or, at least since fourth grade. That's when Brittany Kasberg, 17, moved to Miles, northeast of San Angelo. "I've gone to ALL the cotton festivals," Brittany says. To her, the annual festival represents the cotton fields, the family, the community, the fabric of her life. The life she has known in the town of about 800 is about to change. She's a senior in high school and before long she will leave Miles behind her. Although Brittany comes from a family of cotton ginners, she doesn't plan a career in the fields that have contributed to the Miles economy since the early 1900s. She has set her sights on a nursing degree and will go wherever her career takes her. Many young people leave the region. "When I was in elementary school, there always were more than 10 girls in the pageant," Brittany says. This year, there were eight. Brittany has participated twice before in the Cotton Queen pageant, and she was especially pleased to be chosen queen this year, the year that Miles celebrated its centennial. The Cotton Queen title doesn't come with a scholarship. Brittany receives a gift certificate to an area mall, a sash, a crown and a chance to represent Miles at events and in other communities' parades. It might not sound like much to an outsider. But to Brittany, it's a chance to shine, if only for a year, in the place she calls home.

Miss Westfest, West, Texas

Her Czech heritage runs deep. It's rooted in her family's 100 years of farming in Texas. It comes from her early years of baking kolaches at her grandmother's side. It shows up in the traditional Czech dances she performs with a group from West. So it came as no surprise that Shannon Kostecka, 17, told the judges that the first thing she'd do if crowned Miss Westfest is dance and celebrate. She's wanted to be Miss Westfest as long as she can remember. It came as more of a surprise when they asked her who she would most like to meet, dead or alive, and she answered: "Elvis Presley." Shannon remembers watching "Blue Hawaii" on TV as a child and dancing around the house with her stuffed monkey to the soundtrack, which included "Can't Help Falling in Love." She's been an Elvis fan ever since. Shannon is a theater buff whose favorite school production was "Alice in Wonderland" Living in West means much more than living in the best kolache stop on Interstate 35. The town, population 3,000, is just a short drive from the Metroplex, yet retains its everyone-knows-everyone-and-their-grandparents-too charm. It's not a bygone charm. It's still there and thriving, even when visited by the same troubles as those in big cities. Three of Shannon's friends have been killed in car accidents in the past two years. She has since joined Students Against Destructive Decisions, a group where young members agree not to drink, take drugs or drive dangerously. The judges were impressed. In September, they chose Shannon from a field of eight girls to be this year's best of West.

Miss Gatorfest, Anahuac, Texas

Ashley Rhodes, 17, stands in a pink satiny dress and a tiara, not a bit ruffled by the freshly killed alligator hanging from a weigh-in cable beside her. It is the middle of September's alligator hunting season, and that means it's Gatorfest time in Anahuac, a Gulf Coast town near the mouth of the Trinity River. Hunters will win Gatorfest prizes for the largest reptile hauled in. The American alligator, once endangered, now is said to outnumber people three to one in Anahuac. Meat, hide and trophy heads or claws are harvested by alligator processors. Some of the meat is served as alligator-on-a-stick at Gatorfest; some is sold in area grocery stores or shipped to restaurants. For the moment, some of it is hanging on the weigh-in cable next to Ashley. It is hot, and she does not shrink from the miasma of gator stench or from the proximity of its claws. "I'm used to them, ma'am. We see them all the time," says Ashley. "Every time we are out in a boat." Ashley, like so many young people from small towns, doesn't plan to pursue a career harvesting one of the region's crops. She doesn't even want to hunt gators. The girl from Winnie wants to be an actress. She's just won Miss Photogenic, Miss Congeniality and Miss Gatorfest out of a field of 25 contestants. She has a black belt in tae kwon do. She isn't scared of alligators. She just might make it in Hollywood.

The Oatmeal Queen, Oatmeal, Texas

This is how much small-town Texas loves to put crowns on its girls. It happened in September at the Oatmeal Community Center, a place normally only used when it is time to vote. April Dawn Flagg, 15, resplendent in a royal-blue gown, is introduced to a crowd of about 50 friends and neighbors. April waves as if she is Miss America, the Queen of England and every single young girl who ever learned to be gracious. April's hobby is welding. She likes metal art and fixing fences. Her parents raise American quarter horses in the Texas Hill Country, and April has won several rodeo awards. She is an honor-roll student in nearby Burnet. April keeps waving. The crowd is packed into the small community center to avoid the rain. When April wins the title of Oatmeal Queen she waves again toward the people in the crowd, who are, at this point, waving back. There's a man in a cowboy hat waving in the bent-elbow, flat-handed slow style of royalty. So is a man in a baseball cap. Mothers holding babies wave at the new queen, and everyone is smiling, including April's mother, Dawn Flagg, who also is crying. Night starts to fall. Neighbors from Oatmeal and the nearby small towns of Bertram and Burnet are honoring their littlest girls, ages 4 to 6, and their oldest girls, up to age 18, and all the ages of girls in between. Before the night is out there will be a Miss Little Bit of Oatmeal, a Miss Cookie and more. Almost all of them know one another.

Oatmeal doesn't have a crop to celebrate. It doesn't have a particular ethnic heritage to salute. Oatmeal, population about 20, has never been an oat-raising land. Oatmeal is a derivative of the name of an early German gristmill owner who settled nearby. But Oatmeal shares the culture of many places in Texas, and come rain or come shine, crops or not, it wants to crown its girls.

» Kudos And Did You Knows

Kudos to Sarah Callahan (Miss West Broward Teen USA); Barbara Ewald (director West Broward USA); Amber Garrod (Miss Palm Beach County Teen USA & ’07 FLUSA Delegate) and Glenda Byrd (director Miss Gold Coast/Palm Beach USA) for their participation in the Arthritis Walk held on Saturday Oct 15 in West Palm Beach. They walked 3 miles Saturday and had a great time raising money for the Arthritis Foundation. Great job ladies!

» Pageant News Wanted!

Are you a titleholder or at large delegate who is making appearances or doing good things in the community? We would love to tell all of the Miss Florida USA Family your story. Send pictures and updates to telair@aol.com as we feature everything Miss Florida USA on Friday’s at Faces & Places.

» Alumni News Wanted!

If you know of any Miss Florida USA alumni in the news please drop us an email to feature them in future articles. Email all info to info@missfloridausa.com! Until next week here to good pageantry!

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