THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506250097
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
The image still suits her.
The glamorous look, the spunky personality, even the white sequined evening gown Holly Jereme Wright wore on a Roanoke, Va., runway 15 years ago all still fit the former Miss Virginia.
Saturday evening, Wright will once again grace the stage at the Hotel Roanoke as she co-hosts and performs in the 1995 Miss Virginia pageant to be broadcast live on WAVY-TV 10 in Portsmouth.
Wright, an Elizabeth City resident for the past 14 years, had just earned a bachelor's degree in dance and theater from East Carolina University when someone encouraged her to enter the Miss Virginia Pageant.
The former Portsmouth resident was staying with her parents in Roanoke at the time and knew very little about beauty pageants.
That, she thinks, may have helped her win the title.
``A lot of girls just make, like, a hobby out of it. They just go back and go back. I remember just being in awe of it. So, maybe I was real natural because I didn't know the protocol. I didn't know what to do,'' Wright said.
If she didn't know what to do then, she does now. And like those other ``girls,'' Wright has gone back numerous times to perform or help emcee the annual shows.
She'll host this year's pageant with Roanoke restaurateur Lowell Hill and perform a Madonna number called ``I'm Going Bananas'' during the show. The selection, she noted, was made for her.
The Caribbean-like number fits in with this year's theme of multicultural awareness, which served as the platform for reigning queen Cullen Johnson of Norfolk.
Platforms, Wright explained, are an essential part of pageantry these days.
``Miss America contestants have to have a talent and a platform - something that you're speaking up for or a cause that you're working for. They're trying, I think, to give a little more integrity to it than it may have had in the past,'' Wright said.
Wright didn't place in the Top 10 during the 1980 Miss America Pageant.
But her celebrity status helped her career as a dance instructor and local performer, she said.
A year after winning the state title at age 23, Wright moved with her new husband, David, to his hometown of Elizabeth City. Shortly after her arrival, Wright became a dance instructor at the Elizabeth City School of Dance. About a year later, she bought the dance studio.
Two years ago, she sold the studio to the Virginia Beach-based Golden Slippers Dance Academy to devote more time to her family, which now includes sons Brent, 9, and Coleman, 5.
Although she sold her dance business, the 5-foot-3-inch woman is still involved in show business as a Golden Slippers dance instructor and regular performer on local stages.
Being labeled a former beauty queen, she said, has helped keep her on her toes.
``I think it's helped, especially if you're teaching dance,'' she said during a break at her church's Vacation Bible School. Becoming Miss Virginia, she added, ``was something that gave me a lot of confidence because it was a goal you had to work for. It was an accomplishment.''
KEYWORDS: MISS VIRGINIA PAGEANT by CNB