There was a time when newspapers could get away with lines like that, as the Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal did, on page 7B of its June 15, 1958 edition: “Pretty Betty Jo Revels is among a dozen entrants already announced in the Miss Flagler County beauty contest to be July 4 at Flagler Beach. She is 16 years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 120 pounds, and has hazel eyes and brown hair.”
If collective memory serves, “pretty Betty Jo Revels” may well have won that year, as Revelses have a tendency to do in this county (Betty Jo’s sister-in-law sits on the County Commission). That was also back in those Eisenhower years, a half decade before The Feminine Mystique, when you could get away with referring to a pageant as a “beauty contest.”
No more. One of Flagler County’s oldest traditions is still around, and likely will be as long as there’s coquina on the beaches, bare feet treading them and an Independence Day in the event’s neighborhood. But it’s not quite a beauty contest anymore. It’s the Miss Flagler County Pageant, or to be even more official about it, the Miss Flagler County Scholarship Pageant (at least for the older contestants), and it’s not just about beauty. There’s on-stage personality. There’s poise. There’s conversational skills and breadth of ambition.
There’s even, for the older contestants, an essay in the mix, The Trez G. Frassrand Scholarship Essay, named after the woman who became the coordinator and director of the pageant in 1972 and until her death in 1996. Frassrand, who was married to Bernard C. Frassrand, was the mother of Zoee Forehand, owner of Flagler Beach’s Z Wave Surf Shop and director and sponsor of the pageants from 1995 to 2007, when Elizabeth McLaughlin became director. (McLaughlin was Miss Flagler County in 1993.)
Enough essay-writing for now. Time to get acquainted with this year’s contestants. They’re all here, each with her own page and brief profile, and with all contestants grouped by categories and collective galleries. Here they are:
Little Miss Flagler County 2010 Contestants, Ages 8-11
Miss Junior Flagler County 2010 Contestants, Ages 12-15
Miss Flagler County 2010 Scholarship Pageant Contestants, Ages 16-23
The four Miss Flagler County Pageants are scheduled for Saturday, June 26, at the Flagler Auditorium, beginning at 3 p.m. Tickets are $5 per adult, $3 for children under 10 at the Flagler Auditorium box office. More information will post in the days ahead.
