THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605020030
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 176 lines
THE JUDGES are looking for verve.
Miss Hampton has it. A swirl of lipstick and silver curls, she's a shot to end all ``glamour shots.''
Miss Portsmouth has it, too. Her carnation pink outfit - drop-waist dress, blush-toned stockings on somewhat unsteady legs, pink pumps, straw hat and pink pearls - will knock them cold.
And Miss Norfolk definitely has it. A single white braid down her back and eyes like two blue moons, she's wisdom and innocence all in one.
But as each eyed the other, she thinks the same darn thing.
``I can't compete with these gals. They've got too much verve.''
Even when you're way past three score and 10, even when being a century doesn't seem that old, a Miss Maturity crown is not easily won. The only sure key to victory, they know, is vitality, (no Geritol allowed) and a 'tude that says ``in your face, Father Time.''
``You've got to be positive,'' says 90-year-old Helen Poteet, prim Miss Portsmouth, taking her place among the six contenders in the Miss Sentara Maturity pageant, sponsored by Sentara Nursing Centers.
The crepe-paper runway and throne - on loan from Virginia Stage Company's production of ``Hamlet'' - glow beneath a chandelier in the dining hall at Sentara Nursing Center in Virginia Beach. The hall is festooned in red balloons and gold curtain. As good as Atlantic City.
At stake is a year-long reign visiting area community centers, schools and other homes for the elderly. Contestants will compete in talent and evening-gown categories (no swimsuits here) and have to answer a ``crucial'' question.
And when it's over, only one will wear the crown of Miss Maturity.
From the minute she pads to center stage before the four judges, it's clear Miss Chesapeake, Mary Lou Krummack, has the age advantage. At 66, she is the youngest contender.
She moves slowly, allowing the judges to take in her pleasantly plump figure and friendly smile.
The master of ceremonies, a young man who looks like Bob Barker, introduces her. Her credentials are enough to make fellow contestants cringe.
She is known throughout a Chesapeake nursing home for her ``caring nature toward others,'' the emcee says. When someone calls, Krummack comes like a nurse on duty. She practically ``anticipates'' the needs of others, ``with quick feet and a bright smile.''
Plus, she volunteers monthly for beauty shop and Meals on Wheels.
Her hobbies - coloring, collecting calendars, pet therapy, bingo, bowling, church and travel - show broad interests.
Krummack pauses downstage, striking a casual pose, a little wobbly at first. An ROTC cadet from Green Run High School escorts her gently.
Steady now, she grins into the audience of folks in wheelchairs and on walkers. Except for a few sleeping souls, they applaud like crazy.
In every pageant, the talent competition separates the gonna-be's from the wanna-be's.
Miss Norfolk, Anna Cummings, is a gonna-be.
``I sing for you three songs,'' Miss Norfolk, Anna Cummings, says in a Polish accent that sweetens her song like pastry. ``First, `Spring is Blooming,' a Russian song. Then `Buy Delightful Cookies,' in Polish. Then `Oh, Say Can You See' in English.''
The 75-year-old is a bit croaky at first. Then pure and clear her soprano rises till she belts it out, a cross between Kate Smith and Ethel Merman.
Gathering confidence from the approving crowd, Cummings pulls the microphone closer. She hits a high note that sends judge Cecilia Tucker's fingers gripping the ballot.
Cummings sings like the girl she once was, a 17-year-old who arrived in America in August 1938 and learned glass-blowing and other crafts to earn a buck. She sings like the woman who sewed dresses and raincoats in factories. And like the mother of two daughters, one of whom summoned her to Norfolk to retire.
By the time Cummings gets to ``The Star-Spangled Banner,'' the house is rocking, folks are wheeling closer, clapping and singing. Those who can stand, are practically on their feet. ``Oh, say can you see. . .''
Cummings bows and bows in every direction.
``Two months ago, I wouldn't have believed this was possible,'' says Cummings' daughter Mary Dugroo. ``She had a feeding tube, her hands were contracted. She was in a wheelchair. This is what happens with the right amount of prayer and tender loving care.
``I've never seen this wonderful side of my mother. She's got personality. She's got pizazz.''
``A tough act to follow,'' come whispers as the audience settles down again.
Miss Virginia Beach, Marie Hudson, gives her best shot.
Her private-duty nurse, Lisa Mull, had had to do some prodding to get her here. ``I pushed her into it,'' says Mull. ``I was wondering if I would ever have a job after today. I just kept motivating her.''
Every day.
And every day, the retired Navy civil service worker resisted. She would rather be watching ``Wheel of Fortune,'' her favorite TV show.
``Deep down inside I think she really wanted to do it. She just had to be convinced,'' says Mull.
On the morning of the pageant, Hudson made up her mind. She would compete. Furiously, she searched for the perfect poem.
Now, here she sits, radiant in a red, gray and blue paisley number, looking 75 years young. She gives it her all, in a soft, sometimes frail voice filled with the frazzling frustrations of growing old.
``Dearest Friend, Just a line to say I'm living that I'm not among the dead. Though I'm getting more forgetful and more mixed up in the head. For sometimes I can't remember when I stand at the foot of the stairs if I must go up for something or I've just come down from there! . . .Here I stand beside the mailbox with my face so very red! Instead of mailing you this letter I have opened it instead.''
Cover yourselves! There's a man out there,'' screeches the warning from the dressing room. A cadet and a photographer had gotten too close to the door.
Wheelchairs whirr toward the window, concealing bras, panties and a few folds of flesh. A blur of nursing home assistants grabs at dresses draped on hangers, amid a hustle to haul skirts over silver heads, strap on silver sandals and tie on wrist corsages.
Back in the dining hall, the Bob Barker guy explains, ``There is a slight delay in the dressing room. . . ''
Miss Portsmouth, Helen Poteet, slips - with the aid of several assistants - into a maroon, velvet empire gown and white, satiny stole.
There are no complaints of stiffness, no huffing and puffing, no pacemaker panic. At last, they are ready. The door swings open. Out the contestants file down a long corridor for the evening gown competition.
``Hard work,'' says Miss Portsmouth, ``being a beauty queen.''
What judge could resist the gentle swish of the flowing lavender gown that falls around Miss Currituck, Edna Thompson, 83. She modeled the gown as George Riabikoff played Chopin's Moonlight Sonata. There is no question: She has the best figure of all.
This gown is special because it shows off her slender but curvaceous figure. But it doesn't touch the gorgeous gowns she has sewn over the years for weddings and proms. As a teen-ager during the Depression, Thompson, now a great grandmother of 15, learned to sew to earn money to make her own clothes.
Only tall, slender Miss Hampton, Jean Shattuck, can give Thompson's figure a fight.
In a two-piece turquoise that shimmers like a strobe light, Shattuck turns, knees shaky, to show all sides to the judges. Then she eases into her chair.
Shattuck hasn't lived a day without style. For 20 years she modeled minks, raccoons and other furs on runways of New York City. Now all her experience, elegance and etiquette have crystallized in this moment like diamonds on a crown.
But in the back of her mind, Shattuck, 87, wonders, ``What am I doing competing with a 75-year-old?''
``I felt like I was too old for this crowd,'' she would say later.
The judges begin to shift in their seats. This isn't going to be easy at all.
``Their youth is overflowing and they made the crowd have a ball,'' says judge Heidi Ketler. ``I don't think there should be a winner or a first or second place.''
Evening gown, talent competition - none of them means a thing when it comes down to the final question.
The whole room listens to an envelope open.
``What do you think beauty is?''
``The way you carry yourself,'' says Miss Portsmouth.
As the ballots are collected and tallied, not even the audience stirs. There is silence, soap bubbles from a machine and serenity. These beauty queens wish for no magic wand to make them young again. Each is content, having traded youth for wisdom and a million golden memories. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Helen Poteet, 90, representing Portsmouth, rests in a hair-styling
room during the Miss Sentara Maturity context.
Photos
BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Jean Shattuck, Anna Cummings and Mary Lou Krummack wait for the
judges' decision.
Shattuck, left, and Cummings confer during the contest in Virginia
Beach.
Graphic
MISS MATURITY BEAUTY PAGEANT WINNERS:
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB