
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 2, 1995                   TAG: 9508020010
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MISS AMERICA COMPETITION JUST DOESN'T MEASURE UP

Now that the recent unpleasantness in the Miss Virginia contest is over, we have to face the Miss America Pageant. I wish we didn't, but that's the price we pay for living in a free country.

The last I heard, pageant officials were taking a poll to see if Americans think dropping the bathing suit competition would be a blow from which the country would never recover.

They didn't ask me, but I've always thought that bathing suit contests are degrading, shameful and appalling in general.

I also don't approve of young women singing "Summertime" in the talent competition, or juggling fresh fruit.

This goes for piano playing and interpretive dancing of all kinds.

I will say, however, that given certain recent events in Virginia, the bathing suit competition may be the best quality-control device the national pageant has.

You could probably get away with saying in your resume that you attended Oxford, where you once smoked an unfiltered Camel but didn't inhale - when you actually went to Old Siwash and smoked a joint or two.

Or that you were voted Bell Ringer Teammate of the Year when you actually served as team water girl. Water girl, eh? I'll hear about that one.

But once they get you into a bathing suit, you can't make up anything - as in 32-24-32, which are the measurements of most pageant contestants. Apparently, you can't compete if you're say, well, er,um, ah, 40-28-38.

Even contestants with such hearty titles as Miss Portsmouth Seawall have what many consider modest measurements.

Persons composed like Jessica Hahn - no matter how interesting their resumes or augmentation surgery records - just aren't welcome.

I think that's why Dolly Parton was never Miss America - leaving many of to regret she never had the chance to sing "Coat of Many Colors" in the talent phase.

Those snooty pageant people wouldn't have let her sing anyway. They want to hear classical piano and think "Wildflowers Don't Care Where They Grow" to be debased rural sentimentality.

In the meantime, if anybody knows who the current Miss America is, keep it to yourself. I don't need more useless stuff banging around in my head.

The only Miss America I remember is Vanessa Williams. They said she was axed officially for posing in Penthouse. Me, I think she was dumped because her measurements were too big.

by CNB