THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409180065
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROXANNE ROBERTS, THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. LENGTH: Long : 135 lines
Editor's note: This profile of Miss Virginia, Cullen Johnson, a Virginia Beach woman who was a favorite in last night's Miss America pageant, appeared Saturday in The Washington Post.
Of course she glues her swimsuit to her butt.
After four years of preparation, there's no way Miss Virginia was going to let a slippery bit of lime-green fabric ruin her chances of winning the Miss America job. So Cullen Johnson, like all the other pageant veterans vying for the position Saturday night, sprayed her backside with Firm Grip, slapped on the suit and bounced down the runway.
Some things you don't leave to chance in this business. Johnson, who lives in Virginia Beach, won the swimsuit competition here Tuesday night, and the word buzzing through the crumbling Convention Center was that the 23-year-old brunette with the killer smile had a good shot at walking away with the crown, a $35,000 scholarship, more than $200,000 in appearance fees, and more.
Nor are the rewards that follow this one-year gig inconsiderable. Miss America 1993, Leanza Cornett, landed a million-dollar contract with ``Entertainment Tonight''; the current titleholder, Kimberly Aiken, just signed with the William Morris Agency, which represents media and Hollywood stars.
Where else could an ambitious young woman like Johnson - bright but not a National Merit Scholar, very pretty but not head-turning striking, a talented pianist but no concert soloist - thrust herself into the national spotlight? Who wouldn't happily wear a rhinestone crown for a quarter-million bucks?
Think of the pageant as a surreal two-week job interview. Now in its 74th year, this contest has morphed into part political nominating convention, part triathlon and part ``Star Search.'' Picture Ollie North and Chuck Robb debating homelessness. Now imagine them also parading around in swimsuits, and tap-dancing. You begin to get some idea. On Monday, the stress of this surreal atmosphere finally hit. ``I turned to the girls in the dressing room and said, ``Have any of you all snapped yet?' '' Johnson said. ``Then I went back to my hotel room, had a good cry and a hot shower, and I was ready to go.''
The next day she ``nailed'' the all-important judges' interview and walked away with the first of three preliminary swimsuit competitions.
``I think she's going to win,'' said Lea Schiazza-Cantwell, Miss Pennsylvania 1985. ``This whole thing is a matter of timing. I think she's at the right place at the right year.''
Every job has a look. It took good genes and six years of pageant training. Now Cullen Johnson has perfected ``the look'' for Miss America:
Attractive but not too sexy. Pretty but not exotic. Tiny - 5 feet 5 inches, 105 pounds, size 4 - like many of the contestants. But ``fit'': 34-22-32, thanks to daily jogging and weight lifting. Vibrant smile, great eye contact. Assured but not cocky. And natural hair - no spray, no teasing, no bleach. An unofficial tip sheet floating through the convention hall describes her as ``classy and gorgeous with Nineties style hair.''
Johnson has the kind of discipline and poise that comes from being the only child of a three-star admiral and commander of the 2nd Fleet. (Vice Adm. Jay Johnson, with Haiti on his mind, was unable to be here this week to see his daughter compete.)
Getting to a pageant like this is no cakewalk. In 1988, Johnson entered and won the Miss Cox High School pageant in Virginia Beach. She received a piano scholarship to Longwood College in Farmville, where she entered Miss Longwood, a local pageant in the Miss America system, and came in second runner-up.
She caught the pageant bug. She already had the talent and looks, and she liked the challenge of competing.
Some local pageants require contestants to live in the area; others are ``open'' titles, where anyone living in the state can compete.
The next year Johnson won Miss Northern Virginia and competed in her first Miss Virginia pageant, where she came in second runner-up. She went back the next two years - as Miss Longwood and Miss Norfolk.
Each title taught her a little more about the business. She rode in parades, made a few presentations and learned how to handle drunks who teased her about being a ``beauty queen.''
``It's hard to sit there and be nice to these people, but that's your job,'' she says. ``So you just roll with the punches.''
Last year she graduated (with a 3.2 GPA) from Longwood with a degree in modern languages - she speaks fluent French - and was thinking about hanging up the old crown when she was recruited to participate in the Miss Central Shenandoah Valley pageant.
Tom Whitfield, local director of the Shenandoah pageant, had called Johnson from Atlantic City last September. ``I told her, `You need to be here. You deserve to be here. And next year, you're going to be here,' '' he said.
So Johnson, with three years of state experience and ``the look'' under her belt, blew away the local competition and finally captured the Miss Virginia title July 2 in Roanoke.
``I know for a fact that this is going to be my launching pad,'' she said then. She won $7,000 in scholarship money, bringing her total winnings to about $15,000. She's paid off her tuition, paid back her parents for pageant-related loans and invested the rest in McDonald's stock.
The day after she won, she started preparing for Atlantic City.
The platform issue Miss Virginia addressed before the judges was ``Multicultural Awareness.'' Makes sense. Johnson, the Navy brat, has lived all over the world, and the subject is politically correct to boot. Three other contestants have selected the same issue, but Miss South Dakota's nod to diversity - a Native American tribal dance - outraged Indian activists who say the blond, blue-eyed contestant is insulting their heritage.
To win the title, though, a contestant still has to fill out a swimsuit. This is the first year contestants modeled their suits in bare feet, in keeping with the pageant's shift to a more ``natural'' look (breast taping, Firm Grip and industrial-strength bathing suit material that reveal nothing even under zillion-megawatt lights notwithstanding).
The Miss America program repeats to anyone who will listen that this is the largest scholarship program for women in the world, with $24 million available in local, state and national pageants.
This is, in fact, true, although academic brilliance has never been the hallmark of the pageant. What it does provide, however, is a place for self-driven, highly accomplished, well-rounded young women to showcase their interests and talents. There are singers and actresses and television anchor wannabes galore. Every state titleholder spends a year traveling to every city and town, meeting with the sponsors and business leaders.
An enterprising young woman like Johnson recognizes that there are a lot of opportunities there. You could even call it a yearlong job interview.
It's not a bad year. As Miss Virginia, Johnson will receive the use of a new Chevrolet, a cellular phone, a $1,500 wardrobe from Leggett's department store and other prizes donated by sponsors. She will earn about $25,000 in appearance fees (more if she is aggressive about bookings) paid by local businesses.
But some women discover, after the show is over, that they're not crazy about the job.
Last year, Miss New York refused to leave her fast-track position on Wall Street because the pageant could not guarantee she would earn a significant income in appearance fees. This threw pageant officials for a loop: She had signed a contract, after all. An uneasy truce was declared; she ended up making appearances only within driving distance of Manhattan. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Miss Virginia, Cullen Johnson, who lives in Virginia Beach, won the
preliminary swimsuit competition Tuesday at the Miss America
pageant in Atlantic City, N.J.
by CNB