DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709120077

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Bonko 

                                            LENGTH:   96 lines

MISS VIRGINIA IS SHUNNING 2-PIECE SWIMSUIT IN HER QUEST FOR CROWN

WILL SHE OR won't she? Will our very own Miss Virginia wear a two-piece swimsuit tonight in Atlantic City, N.J., showing her navel to millions watching on ABC starting at 9?

Let's end the suspense here and now.

Kelli Kuick of Richlands, who won the Miss Virginia title on her second try, is planning to wear a one-piece swimsuit on her 5-foot-7 bod in the Miss America pageant.

We'll never know if her navel is an innie or an outie.

The 20-year old Kuick is a modest, righteous young woman who believes that God months ago decided who'll be crowned the new Miss America tonight. But she sees no scandal in other contestants doing what Barbara Eden as Jeannie never did on TV - the navel review.

It's just not her thing.

``I think it's perfectly all right for contestants to wear a two-piece swimsuit, but it's not for me. A one-piece swimsuit is more flattering to my body type,'' she said from Miss Virginia headquarters in Roanoke before packing off to Atlantic City.

For whatever the reason - cynics point to the pageant's declining ratings - the Miss America braintrust in 1997 decided to allow two-piece swimsuits, provided that no more than an inch of flesh shows below the navel.

``Our instructions say there won't be any thongs or bikinis, nothing in bad taste. This isn't a pageant about being sexy or sensual,'' said Leonard C. Horn, the pageant's president and executive producer of the ABC telecast.

Horn hates it when people refer to Miss America as a beauty pageant.

The reigning Miss America, Tara Dawn Holland of Overland Park, Kan., also hates that. She tried hard to convince TV writers meeting in Los Angeles that contestants don't have to be drop-dead gorgeous to win.

Plain Janes have a shot at winning the crown with 736 stones in it, said Holland, who is anything but ordinary-looking at 24.

``If she takes care of herself, wears the right clothes and slaps on a little makeup, any woman can be attractive regardless of what her face and body look like,'' Holland said.

Miss America a beauty pageant? Somebody is spreading nasty rumors.

``This is a scholastic competition,'' Horn said.

That's funny because I never heard of contestants matching SAT scores, competing on ``Jeopardy!'' or doing a master's thesis on the challenge of smiling for one week straight in Atlantic City. What Horn means is the pageant awards scholarship money to contestants who finish high in the competition - more than $100 million since the pageant started as a publicity stunt in 1921.

Holland said the money she's won, about $80,000, is paying for her masters degree in music education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Not a beauty pageant? Why then have the women paraded in swimsuits?

Tradition, Horn says.

And the people watching on TV want to see women who probably haven't had more than 300 calories a day for the last two months displaying their chests and thighs. Ratings rule.

ABC this year is promising behind-the-scenes, backstage coverage including the judges' interviews.

The pageant, which has been beamed into American homes since 1954, is a TV franchise worth millions.

In Virginia, Kuick was happy to hear that you don't have to resemble the women on the cover of Cosmopolitan to be Miss America in 1997. ``When I look in the mirror, I see a girl who looks like a million other girls . . . with pimples and all.''

Kuick, a student at Emory and Henry, competed as Miss Lynchburg in winning the Miss Virginia sash and crown. Before that, she was Miss Lonesome Pine and a finisher in the top ten.

Persistence pays off, she said.

Kuick comes to Atlantic City with a unique philosophy. She believes that God has made his pick. ``He's already chosen the woman he wants to be Miss America this year. It's his will, and that gives me peace of mind. I feel free.''

His choice could be Kuick. Virginia is due. We haven't had a winner since a Virginia Tech cheerleader, Kylene Barker, won way back in 1979. Kuick, a pretty good singer, and a bright young woman with a nice personality, hasn't been overmatched in Atlantic City.

She has a neat first name (Kelli) in a competition where neat names (Tawny, Venus, Yolande, Bebe, Neva, Vonda Kay, Sharlene, Kellye, Kay Lani Rae and Leanza) impress the judges.

I'd feel better about her chances if she could sing, twirl a flaming baton and bounce up and down on a trampoline at the same time. Or if she had hair almost five feet long like the Miss America of 1951. Or was six feet tall like Miss America in 1965. Or was related to Daniel Boone as was Miss America in 1949.

``I'll do my best. I feel honored to be among the 51 contestants. Almost 80,000 young women entered the preliminaries,'' she said. ``If I mess up, please remember that I'm human.''

This is the year when, after 30 Septembers with NBC, ABC televises the pageant, the year we see contestants in two-piece swimsuits, and evening gowns give way to ``evening wear.''

For the first time, a TV journalist (Nancy Glass) will fire questions at the five finalists, and the co-hosts will be unknown to anyone who doesn't watch soap operas - John Callahan and Eva LaRue of ``All My Children.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

Kelli Kuick...

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