Pageant News Bureau - Miss Teen USA 2002, Page 3

Look into her eyes

Lynsie Shackelford, Miss Arizona Teen USA, has a favorite place. Naturally it's in Arizona, but that's all we're saying. It sounds so delightful when she describes it that we don't want anyone going there and spoiling it.

Ms. Shackelford also has a cute nickname, but we won't reveal what it is. Because then we would have to explain how she got it, and nobody can tell that story the way she can.

Do you get the point? There's something about the way this girl talks. Maybe it's charm, maybe it's hypnosis. When she laughs, you laugh with her. When she has an opinion, you agree. When she has a dream, suddenly it's your dream.

Ms. Shackelford competed for years in child pageants, then decided to quit. Listen to how she describes the time before she went back: "I didn't think I would miss it, but I did. I missed the experience. I missed the competition. I missed the other girls."

Photos courtesy of Lynsie Shackelford

She dances. "Tap, ballet, pointe, lyrical, modern. I love jazz." She wants to be a professional dancer, or maybe a general surgeon. Two very different callings, but she ties them together. "Maybe a dance physiologist."

And when you press her to say something just a wee bit critical of dancing, she replies, "There should be more men!" Just the right answer.

Wonder girl

Hailey Capps of Alabama is the oldest girl in the running for Miss Teen USA 2002. She will turn 19 on Aug. 28, the date of the pageant.

Considering all that she has done up to now, you might think she was much older. An admitted overachiever ("I just have to have the highest 'A' "), she has already completed two years of college in one year's time.

She has been an all-American cheerleader and president of her school's Student Government Association. She studied in New York on a dance scholarship at age 12. She has been Little Miss Dixie and a local peanut queen.

One thing she doesn't do is "organized sports." But don't think she's soft. She walks 12 miles a day, works out frequently and likes to go kneeboarding and skiing.

Ms. Capps is the first beauty queen we've ever met who plans to become a lawyer for a chemical company. "I know it sounds bad," she says, "but I love to argue." And chemistry is her favorite subject.

She's also the first girl we ever interviewed who thinks that becoming a movie star would be a good way to "take a break." And maybe she's right.

Photos courtesy of Hailey Capps

August 2002South Padre Island, Texas

Look into her eyes

Wonder girl

August 2002
South Padre Island, Texas