Arkansas Blog

Every time I see something about a beauty pageant it brings back the memories.

In college our fraternity sponsored the school pageant that was a preliminary for Miss America.

When I got there this was a money loosing comunity service. Hunt down 4 or 5 talented girls, beg them to enter, then sell ads in the show program or promote the show to sell tickets. We had to cover the costs at the state pageant and a scholarship. Like I said, a money looser.

Then a couple of us business majors noticed that every contestant had on average 10 or 15 friends and family come to the show. Plus their family always bought a full page ad showing some cute baby picture.

We decided that since our girls never won the state pageant that we should just try to keep from losing money. We had a call for auditions and chicks lined up to try out. We let every girl in. Instead of 4 girls we had 20 and the full page baby ads sold them selves and we had an overflow crowd at the show. We made so much money that we could have a big party afterwards and still pay all the chapter bills for the month.

The quality of the contestants plumetted but profits soared.

But here is the part that will get me in hot water with Tina and Zelda.

Trolling the after the pageant party was like shooting fish in a barrel. All these girls were desperate to have someone tell them they were pretty and or talented. All it took was going up to any of the losers and tell them that they were robbed and the judges must have made a mistake and you were in like flint.

The winner was unapproachable but from the runner up down to the "laughed off the stage" contestant was "vulnerable and needy" i.e. easily compromised.

Ah, the sun is out and the weekend is about here and I am remembering the lod times and I think I will take off the rest of the day and call up some old frat brothers and see if we can get together for a canoe trip in a week or two.

"The quality of the contestants plumetted but profits soared."

I just laughed so hard Dr. Pepper came out my nose. Hilarious.

On another note.
At breakfast this morning, i was behind J.T. Griffin esq. USA, etc, etc, and he said that he used to date Kelly George too. Who hasnt he dated? I know Arkansas is a small state and all....

Citizen1

I'm sure some will feign disgust with you post, but I must admit, I got a good chuckle out of the read. Sadly those days are long gone, but the memory still serves me well.

Thanks.

The military finally learned what Madison Ave knew since its inception, sex sells and as you mentioned beats the hell out of body bag reports and exploded Humvees..just your friendly, attractive, sexy U.S. military partcipating in yet another aspect of the American Dream. Not much longer until they're like Coke, so imbedded into every aspect of Americana it becomes like another extension of you.
_

When all you red blooded American men look at Lt. Kelly George, just imagine that body coming back from Iraq in a flag-draped coffin.

I'm with you on the "imagine that body" part.

Sunshine out side has me in its grip and I am thinking about the old times.

Earl is sort of egging me on here so here is another college memory.

My appologies to all in advance.

Back before our pageant was turned into a money machine we were unable to afford roses for the winner's bouquet. We were about to go beg a couple florists for a deal when we passed a cemetery and spied a couple arrangements from two funerals earlier that morning.

The grounds keeper swapped them for two beers since he was about to pitch them anyway.

Now we had flowers.

Since they were all funeral flowers we made a big sign for the award portion of the pageant that said "The Queen's Red Carnation Coronation". That seemed to cover for the species of the flowers.

All the contestants were parading around with bundles of red carnations wired to little green sticks. No one complained. That is just recycling.

Speaking of recycling.

Back in the 70's Coors beer was making their debut in Arkansas. ( You old farts remember driving all the way to OK to get beer that you wouldn't drink for free nowdays?)

Anyway, Coors wanted to get recycling jumpstarted and decided to have a contest between campus groups. There were 30 days to collect cans and the group that collected the most would get the money for their cans plus a bonus $250, 2nd place got $25 and third got $10.

All month long the handicapped students club collected cans. Every coke machine on campus had a little box beside it with a sign asking for empties. Everyday you would see electric wheelchairs zipping around going from machine to machine collecting cans.

We could have beat the handicapped group if just by getting pledges to collect our empties after parties but that seemed like work.

The Coors campus rep was in our frat and the day before the end of the contest he advised that the frist place group had almost 120#s of cans.

We went to the local scrap yard and bought 150#s of cans. Even though we had to pay like 18 cents a pound and Coors only gave us 15 cents a pound the $250 bucks made it very profitable.

We bought a bunch of kegs with our money. We often wondered what the 2nd place group bought with their $25.

An update, I have called 3 old college buddies and 2 of them said canoeing sounded great so we are going to float the Buffalo.

We will be easy to spot, we'll be the old ba$tard$ laughing our a$$es off at stories that would bore anyone else to tears.

These are only a couple of the escapades from the 70's. These were legal for the most part.

If you want to hear the illegal ones. Get some beer and come along.

I hope the water level is good for paddling.

Citizen1, I have to assume that today you are a bond salesman! Great story.

I think I'll head outside myself.

OMG, she's got my vote[s].

Boys, if that don't make you sing "God Bless America," it's time to emigrate.

Wow. Keeping the conversation regarding Lt. George on a strictly military level, I'd definitely be in favor of some mutual on-site inspection.

>When all you red blooded American men look at Lt. Kelly George, just imagine that body coming back from Iraq in a flag-draped coffin.<

Or, I can just imagine your home blown-up by terrorists.

But let's not open that can of worms.

When asked what's the "craziest" thing she's ever done, Miss AR responded, "While in Ireland, I hung upside down from 100 feet in the air to kiss the Blarney Stone, and I'm afraid of heights!!!" Wow. She's so unpredictable, she haphazardly committed herself to danger in order kiss a stone. That's so insane, I just don't even know what to say.

Miss USA. What a true American gem. I wonder what runs through their minds as they apply Vaseline to their teeth, and prepare uninspired answers to completely generic questions. Those choreographed numbers they "perform" are vomit inducing, while the self-indulgence alone is overwhelming. Waving pom-poms while cartwheeling in flag-clad bikinis does next to nothing to arouse my sense of nationalism, aside from compelling me to apply for a work visa to New Zealand. It's just embarrassing that anyone could bear to endorse this horsesh*t.

It's kind of like a Chevrolet billboard someone pointed out to me this week. It screamed, "OUR COUNTRY. OUR TRUCKS." Belligerence: 0 out of 10.

ArkansasRed, you've got me worried beyond reason. Why, Old Pooty-Poot and them Russkies could launch them thar atomic baliistic missiles; the whole starving nation of Somalian food fighters could be sneaking across the Big Pond in containers on those Super Transports, Columbian drug smuggling assassins could be crossing the border disguised as Carmelite nuns even as I write......

You know, lots of these nasty bastards would be camping in my backyard right now if it wasn't for our boys overseas in Iraq. So, it won't really bother me if they kill that purty young Lt George over yonder as long as it helps keeps them ragheaded creeps in there place.

I've often heard my neighbor bragging about how his pellet gun keeps elephants away from our neighborhood. He must be right, 'cause we aint seen any of 'em yet.

You know them terrorists boys would lighten up a bit if there own women folks had themselves a beauty contest or two. Wonder how a Miss Photogenic contest would come out with them Burka-clad babes?

Theo,

I was a bond salesman (we called ourselves investment bankers) back in the 80's. Too unpredictible, one day your eating chicken, the next, feathers.

We always had the corner table by the bar at Bennigans then after happy hour we moved to the Hilton.

I needed something although less lucrative, a little more steady.

My question is who is the chick in the beige? From what I can see, she looks nice also.

Thanks for tipping me off Citizen1...that is one fine well-formed American breast bathed in beige and I just have to assume there is another one just like it out of the picture. That I missed it proves I'm slipping.

nope, citizen, that was very funny and youre not on my bad list at all. Not with anything that funny.

i wish I'd been able to go wtih you on the beer/float trip wtih you today. hell yes, my friends and I drove to OK to get Coors; I was thinking about that just the other day and never did figure out just what our line of reasoning was. Did we really think Coors was good back then? Now I'd drive to Oklahoma to avoid drinking it.

you were actually WAY ahead of your time with that recycling of the funeral flowers. I'm sure the departed got a good laugh out of that too.

i love the miss america pageant because it's campy and tacky in the right way, but miss usa isnt, hasnt been any fun ever since old trump-head took it over.

I cant speak for Zelda, of course, but I think if a woman enters a beauty pageant then she's put herself out there to be ogled and, in the situation with your college pageant, hit on or whatever you call it nowadays. You can call miss america a scholarship program all you want to, I dont care, I dont see too many ugly girls winning it, do you?

those were funny stories. i wish i could have crashed your floating party today and heard the unprintable ones. ;)