Jenice Armstrong: There's still a place for pageants

I DIDN'T EXPECT to be so moved by the contestants when I agreed to judge this year's Miss Philadelphia Pageant, but I was touched by many of their stories.

Anyone would be. For instance, there was Heather Horner, whose home life was such a mess that she was forced to move out on her own and was declared a ward of the state when she was just 16.

"Don't feel sorry for me," said Horner, now a Drexel University senior, looking around the room. It was too late . . . my eyes had already welled up.

It wouldn't be the only time, either.

One by one, each young woman talked about her life and hopes for the future. Tamara Lawrence, 19, an Overbrook High grad, described how she'd grown up watching a family member being victimized by domestic abuse. She dreams of becoming a paralegal. Brittany Lowry, 22, was bullied and had fallen in with the wrong high-school crowd but got on the right path after being home-schooled. These days she dabbles in modeling and photography and works for her family's plumbing, heating and cooling business.

Then there was Sandra C. Tomaszewski, a dark-haired Rider University junior and assistant funeral director, who explained that her parents' divorce had led her to assume more family responsibilities, especially after her mother became ill. Her mother was receiving chemotherapy close to Drexel, where the pageant took place.

Although I grew up watching the Miss America Pageant, I haven't paid a lot of attention in the past several years. But listening to these contestants' stories, I got a serious case of pageant fever all over again as I was reminded that for many young women, the main reason they were competing for the title of Miss Philadelphia 2011 wasn't because they wanted to walk around in a tiara and sash. Many of them were competing because they need the scholarship money offered as a prize - now more than ever, since so many financial-aid sources have dried up.

The venerable Miss America Pageant may appear to be going the way of the beehive hairdo, but it continues to be the No. 1 source of scholarship money for young women. There aren't many places where a person can compete onstage and walk away with a five-figure scholarship for what amounts to a night's work.

In Philadelphia, Saturday's winner, Maria Sciorillo, 23, walked away with more than $10,000 in prize money - an amount that's doubled if the titleholder enrolls at Drexel. Women with an undergraduate degree can use their winnings for grad school, which many do, or to pay off student loans.

Sure, the contestants had to compete in the dreaded bathing-suit competition. Think what you want about the lifestyle-and-fitness portion of the Miss America tradition, but the bigwigs will get rid of the crown before they do away with that. It's not easy to walk onstage with next to nothing on. During the judging, I noticed some frozen smiles, but the contestants got through it. Despite all the bad headlines that have dogged the Miss America Pageant - the latest involves Miss San Antonio, who got into a dispute with an official over her weight and an insensitive comment to lay "off the tacos" - these competitions still have a place. Even if naysayers accuse them of being anti-feminist or passe.

When I brought up the issue of relevance to Sciorillo, the aspiring music teacher from Yardley, she pointed to the 16 other women who competed. All of them had survived a rigorous audition process.

"Of course it's relevant. How isn't it, if we are all here today?" she said. "That alone proves its relevance. Some girls went to Drexel. Some girls want to be students at Drexel. Some girls are big about their [community service] platforms. They are there for numerous reasons." And as long as those reasons exist, so should the scholarships. They could lose the swimsuit competition, though.

Email: heyjen@phillynews.com. Blog: www.philly.com/HeyJen.