Oops! I accidentally linked to the unedited first draft of this story instead of posting the final version. Here’s the real version! Sorry ’bout that!

When I moved over here from New Orleans, I was assured that I was plunging into a whole new culture than that with which I was familiar in New Orleans. I have, but I love it. I have tried and seen all sorts of wonderful and intriguing new things.

Two weekends ago, my roommate Leon, his sister Tracy, their mom and I went up to Montgomery, Ala., as Leon and Tracy’s cousin Roger’s daughter Allyn (follow all that?) was representing Covington County in the Alabama Junior Miss competition. As a rule, I hate beauty pageants. First, they’re inevitably sexist. If you’re intent on objectifying young people, at least include the guys. Second, pageants are usually boring and shallow.

But the Junior Miss competition is different.

Specifically, it is not a beauty pageant, Roger’s wife Cathy, herself a former Junior Miss, insisted. It is a scholarship competition. Well…OK, it’s a scholarship competition in which the competitors still wear expensive gowns, jewelry and accessories. Apart from the top finalists and the girl finally selected as Alabama Junior Miss, I don’t think anyone won scholarships sufficient to cover the expense of being in the competition. Fortunately, they had already won some prizes, scholarship money and accolades at the county level, so maybe they were breaking even by the time they got to Montgomery.

They offered some interesting acts for the talent portion, each of which was limited to 90 seconds. Most of the performances involved playing classical piano pieces (I pitied the stage hands who constantly had to wheel the grand piano on and off the stage), doing classical or jazz dance, or singing. (We agreed that some of the “jazz dancing” was just plain silly looking.) I really wish the only girl who did a really unique talent, a karate demonstration, could’ve won something for originality. One girl, who ought to have received something for sheer audacity, performed “Lime Jello, Marshmallow, Cottage Cheese Surprise,” which would’ve been pretty funny if she was about 25 years older. (There’s a good rendition of it on YouTube.)

Five girls did dance routines to the song “You Can’t Stop the Beat” from “Hairspray,” and three more did routines to two other songs from the show.

Two, including Allyn, did routines to Linda Eder’s version of “I, Don Quixote” from Man of La Mancha. Allyn’s was beautiful, evocative of a graceful Spanish flamenco dancer, but a very lovely en pointe classical dance routine, which was very creative and elegant. (The other girl used the exact same edit of the song for a twirling routine, but dropped her baton midway through it, bless her heart.)

Those of us cheering Allyn were all issued glow-sticks to wave whenever she was on stage. People representing other counties had different light-up things to wave, distinguishing them from the others, so their representative could see them in the darkened hall. One county’s cheering section had green glowing necklaces that they twirled above their heads. The audience really was getting into the spirit of the competition. In fact, I felt something of the same thrill I had as a kid when Mom and Dad would take us into The City to see the Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. They would buy us Bic-lighter-sized flashlights on a plastic string that we would twirl whenever the lights went down. It was hard not to get swept up in the excitement.

In addition to talent, there was a vigorous fitness routine each girl did, in groups of 12 or 13, to the song “Bounce” from The Princess Diaries soundtrack. There was another segment in which, wearing their evening gowns, they had to promenade elegantly around the stage to show their deportment. Then each girl had to deliver a 20-second statement of belief, many of which began, “So-in-so famous once said…” (Why didn’t the famous person just say it? Why did every last girl who borrowed someone else’s thoughts have to say he or she once said it?) Allyn’s statement, I thought, was refreshingly original and showed real thought and maturity.

There were some academics involved, but, as best as we could determine from what the MCs told us, this was limited to a review of each girl’s high school transcripts and SAT/ACT scores. I found it odd that a scholarship competition had absolutely no public exhibition of scholarship. In the past, one MC related, the girls had to draw a topic from a bowl and then speak extemporaneously on it for one minute. A segment like that, or perhaps a sort of Junior Miss College Bowl would’ve been an interesting way of emphasizing the “scholarship” aspect of a “scholarship competition” that otherwise, for the public segments at least, had many of the trappings of the beauty pageant it purported not to be.

But at last, somewhere around 9.30 p.m. Saturday night, an Alabama Junior Miss was winnowed from the tulle-and-taffeta ensemble amidst the expectant tears and roses and group hug as proud parents and siblings rushed the stage, judges beamed, glow sticks waved, supporters shrieked and “Sweet Home Alabama” blared from the speakers. She won around $8,000 in scholarships and will advance to this summer’s National Junior Miss competition in Mobile.

Likewise exciting, though, was that we had snow Saturday morning! Montgomery is only about three hours north of us, and snow was also expected in the northern Panhandle. (When we got home Sunday afternoon there was ice in the cats’ water dish.) We were sitting in Ihop having breakfast when we noticed something mixed in with rain that had been falling that whole dreary, cold grey morning. Then it turned completely to snow. How fun!

So at last I can say I saw snow this winter. And I got to see a girl do a twirling routine to “I, Don Quixote.”

And in all honesty, I was pretty darn proud of Allyn, who deported herself very well through the whole thing, radiating a simple elegance and dignity throughout. Now that’s a real Junior Miss.

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