babies and beauty pageants!

The librarian was in town with her bouncing baby boy!
They had baby doc appointments set up here for Monday, so she was making a weekend of visiting Savannah friends.
Her schedule was pretty tight, but she squeezed me in this afternoon - hooray!
We met up at Leopold's, then strolled on down to this square, to allow Landon to run off some energy. That was a good idea! He had been spoiled in the ice cream parlor by a visiting grandma from Bluffton and her granddaughter, who was visiting from Connecticut with her BFF.
We only were able to visit for about ninety minutes, though.
I had work at the Lucas!
Was it a movie?
Would it be for a concert?
Nope and nope.
This was something different for me: a beauty contest.

Seriously.
The Miss All-Star United States Pageant, to be specific.
This was unlike any beauty contest I had ever seen on television.
Sure, they still had the Swimsuit competition and the Evening Gown competition.
But the talent segment was gone.
The contestants still had to answer a random question from one of the judges, but that was it.

The entire thing was over in just over an hour or so.
That was a quick night for me!
And of all the gowns seen,
this was the one I wanted.
Not just liked...
no, I wanted it.
Can you imagine twirling on a dance floor in this lovely concoction?
I certainly can!
Miss West Virginia,
thank you for that vision!
She did not win one of the four crowns awarded tonight, sadly, but she was titled "Miss Congeniality" for her group.
Did you catch that bit?
About the four crowns?
That's because they have four categories in which the women compete.
"Teen" is for those still in high school, unwed, and childless.
"Miss" is reserved for those of college age, 19 to 29, unwed, and childless.
"Ms." is for those 25 and older, who have been married and have children.
"Mrs." is for those older than 21 and married.

Interesting classifications, n'est-ce pas?
Apparently, that "Ms." title was just added last year.
The pageant itself is now in its fifth year.
The pageant focuses on patriotism, traditional values, and charity work.
Each of the four categories had only three or four contestants, most of whom were from the southern United States of America.
That's pretty interesting, too.
For any American woman who has strong community activism and wishes to apply, click here.
Maybe I'll see you on the stage next year!