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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 29, 1993                   TAG: 9309300088
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRY PUTTING TALENT AND INTELLECT IN COMBAT BOOTS

The alternative to the old cattle show technique would be more emphasis on contestants' talent and intellect.

(What I'm going to mention here is strictly hearsay, but it is my understanding that there is another Miss America contest in which the participants get rid of all their clothes.

(Indeed, I'm told the winner walks up and down the runway wearing only her crown and a banner across her chest.

(If there was any mention of talent or intellect, I didn't notice, er, um, ah, that is, nobody told me about it.)

More emphasis on talent and intellect. Right.

These people are trying to play with our heads and I resent it.

The Miss America Pageant was never designed to be a contest that ignored the bathing suit as a drawing card.

If that had been the case, Dame May Whitty could have won the thing, or maybe Marjorie Main.

I can hear these young guys now:

"Hey, Creon. Gonna catch Miss America tonight?"

"You bet, Percival. I love the intellect on that Miss Utah, who has a doctorate in philosophy and knows why we are all here."

The pageant people say the bathing suit competition is to show that the contestants - every one of them with 32-24-32 measurements - are in good physical shape.

Sure. If physical shape is so important, who not dump the evening gown competition and have a sit-up contest?

Many of this year's losers, I am told, said they would rather wear sneakers and exercise clothing to emphasize physical fitness.

What kind of exercise clothing are they talking about here? Sweatsuits or those shiny, very tight things all those blondes wear while doing aerobics by the sea on early morning television?

(No. I don't look at such programs, but I have sources who do. I confine my early morning watching to the Weather Channel. Love those cold fronts.)

If these people are really serious and really believe that the bathing suit is not an immutable part of any beauty contest, I have a new category for them.

This would be the overcoat competition, in which only the head and the feet would he showing. Contestants would be required to wear combat boots.

It would come right after the intellect competition in which the contestants would discuss Immanuel Kant.