Pageant News Bureau - National Sweetheart 2007

P a g e a n t N e w s B u r e a u

The great preview pageant

Photos by Joe Whiteko / PNB

Erica Gelhaus of Ohio being crowned National Sweetheart

Hey, let's get deep. The landing of the Mayflower was a preview of the settling of the West. The Spanish Civil War was a preview of World War II. Playground crushes are previews of great romances. And the National Sweetheart Pageant was a preview of Miss America.

It wasn't official. It wasn't exact. Maybe it wasn't intentional. But the fall classic in Hoopeston, Ill., gave us a foretaste of what we could expect in Vegas.

Sherry McDowell of New Mexico

Amber Finley of South Carolina

Caitlin Andrews of Georgia

Chelsea Fahey of Illinois

Jennifer Lee of California

Jennifer Soileau of Louisiana

In the fall of 2007, Miss America state runners-up went to Hoopeston to compete and help promote the National Sweetcorn Festival. Unwittingly, they told the world where pageants are heading in the next few years.

Pretty, leggy, sexy girls. That was the message we got, conveyed most inimitably by winner Erica Gelhaus of Ohio. And the other girls showed a lot of diversity and a lot of leg. Three cheers and more.

Michelyn Butler of Wisconsin

Sarah Pettit of Utah and Tina Faulkner of Washington

And the folks in Illinois farm country were good to us at PNB. It gave us a warm feeling about the coming Miss America Pageant.

But some previews can be misleading.

P a g e a n t N e w s B u r e a u