Miss New Jersey: She's really a Razorback

ATLANTIC CITY When Cara McCollum lifts her shoes onto the dashboard of a convertible Saturday at the iconic "Show Us Your Shoes" parade in Atlantic City, she'll reveal sparkly starfish and seashells, a bedazzled tribute to the Jersey Shore.

But McCollum, Miss New Jersey 2013, is admittedly in uncharted salt waters. McCollum spent most of her life in landlocked Arkansas, and she doesn't care for seafood.

She got her New Jersey driver's license two months ago and has lived in the state only three years, as a student at Princeton University. "It's a particularly touchy subject this year because it's the pageant back and I'm the hometown girl, so people have been surprised to find that this was not my original hometown," McCollum said.

"But I think if you talk to me and you get to know me, I've got the Jersey girl spunk, I can honk just as fast as the next girl."

Between rehearsals for the preliminary competition this week, McCollum sat for interviews in multicolored spandex and a tank top, moving graciously from camera to camera like a speed-dating victim and answering questions with refreshing candor.  To be fair, she had just come from practicing for the onstage questions.

"Learning to talk about ourselves is really the easiest part, since we're essentially all narcissists," she said with a laugh. McCollum even bravely agreed to partake in some Garden State trivia and answered a respectable number - eight of 10 - correctly.

She explained in detail what a "shoobie" was. "I used to be one," said McCollum, who lived in Margate. "Now, three years later, I can't stand them. Don't walk in front of my car." But Jerseyans everywhere will heave a collective sigh of disappointment to hear that when she was asked who "the Boss" was, she answered, "Gandolfini?"

Unofficially, Miss New Jersey is the hostess of the pageant, since it is held in her home state. That has meant more media interviews and heated interrogations than any other contestants, and even inspired a hashtag #wheresjersey for when she's missing.

The Miss New Jersey Education Foundation, which runs the Miss New Jersey pageant, says a contestant must live, work, or go to school in the state for at least six months.

McCollum, 21, was accepted into Harvard and Princeton, but said she became a Jersey girl as soon as she set foot on the Orange and Black's campus. She is majoring in English with an eye toward a career in broadcast journalism but will take this year off to concentrate on Miss New Jersey duties.

Despite coming from rural Arkansas, an area with a deep affinity for pageant life, the qualifying competition for the Miss New Jersey pageant was McCollum's first. Her mother, Maureen, said she discouraged her daughter from entering pageants growing up, given all the other activities she had on her plate.

Winning Miss Island Resort and going on to take the top state crown came as a shock to her and her family. "She hugged us both at the same time and cried and said, 'I couldn't have done it without you," Maureen McCollum said.

"And her dad and I simultaneously said, 'We know.' Then we all three laughed."

McCollum attributes much of her success to her parents, who emphasized education in her economically depressed small town of about 15,000 people, Forrest City, Ark.

Her school district at one point was given an F by the state. The experience inspired her platform, "The Gift of Reading," pegged to a charity she started called "the Birthday Book Program," which sends wrapped books to children in impoverished areas on their birthdays.

"It presents books and reading as a gift, and that encourages kids to take an interest," she said. "It was a way to shed some light in a dark place." That attitude lines up with McCollum's mother's favorite phrase. "If Cara ever complained ... I would say, 'Bloom where you were planted," Maureen McCollum said.  She's just blossoming now in the Northeastern United States.

1.   Who is the governor?

2.   Who is "the Boss?"

3.   Name three famous New Jersey residents, dead or alive.

4.   What states border New Jersey?

5.   Name three New Jersey colleges or universities.

6.   Who was the only U.S. president born in New Jersey?

7.   What is a "shoobie"?

8.   Rank these New Jersey TV shows in the order they debuted, starting with the earliest: The Real Housewives of New Jersey, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Jersey Shore

9.   What is noteworthy about the street names in Atlantic City?

10.    Name your favorite New Jersey diner.

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1.   Chris Christie

2.   James Gandolfini

(Bruce Springsteen)

3.   Frank Sinatra, Springsteen, Gandolfini

4.   Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware

5.   Princeton, Rutgers, Rowan, College of New Jersey

6.   Woodrow Wilson

(Grover Cleveland)

7.   "I do, because I was a shoobie until I started figuring out parking. I started out as a shoobie after I first got my crown, and now I get just as frustrated with shoobies as the next guy." (It must noted, she is a Jersey Shore nonresident)

8.   Sopranos, Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Boardwalk Empire

9.   They are featured in the game Monopoly

10.   Phily Diner in Runnemede

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