The Miss USA pageant was on last weekend. I only know this because I saw a photo prompt on a news website the day before the pageant was to air. I didn’t watch. I haven’t watched any of the televised beauty parades for decades. There are probably many good reasons for not buying into the beauty pageant scene, but the real reason that I stopped watching was that the great state of Wyoming NEVER won. (I stopped watching before the one and only runner up ever occurred.) OK, so Wyoming did have one “Junior Miss” winner, but in the long list of women who held title to any of the notable pageants the states at the end of the alphabet (WV and WY) contain goose-eggs next to their names.

I speculated for a while on why and came up with the following possibilities:

1)      West Virginia and Wyoming state names occur so far down in the alphabet that by the time the judges actually get to see a contestant from these states they are so burned out and bleary-eyed they would not be able to discern whether the figure standing before them was even female. I can hear the judges’ conversation, Judge1 to Judge2 “What is that melody? It really reminds me of a buzz saw.” Judge2, “The contestant is not singing; Judge3 has fallen asleep.” The end-of-alphabet excuse fell through on further research when I found that other W states have had success in at least one pageant.

2)      Young women vying for a beauty title are limited by the top talent in both states, hunting prowess. I have never heard of a Miss Beautiful winner who was able to pursue a deer (or antelope or elk or moose) aptly shoot it down, field dress the animal and tote it back to the admiring crowd in New Jersey (or other venue). However, this is a talent that will hook up the lovely field-roaming lady with her knight in shining camo in either state. I actually overheard this to be true from two young men who worked in my office. Real Guy 1, “I’m in love.” Real Guy 2, “No way, where did you find her?” RG1, “I was on the mountain huntin’ on Saturday and heard a shot nearby; when I looked over the ridge, there she was, blonde hair in a pony-tail field dressing her elk. Man that girl looks good in orange.” RG2, “You’re SO lucky.”

All of this is really of no serious consequence in the spinning of the earth, but it did give me pause. I’m sure that there are many bright, beautiful, talented young women in both states that are serious contenders for the title, but when they come home they will still need to know how to hunt and chop wood in order to survive the winter.