By Rinamay Lopez
With the backdrop of the Grande Ballroom, a glamorous red carpet and a big shiny chandelier set the stage for this year’s Miss UVU Pageant held on Oct. 19. Eleven girls came out from behind a curtain wearing white dresses, dancing with energy and elegance, and introduced themselves.
Every girl prepared for months for this night, each buying their own props for the pageant. The winner of Miss UVU 2013 was announced as Chelsi Richards, who was in tears when her name was called.
Prior to the announcement, Alisha Lee, former Miss UVU and one of the night’s hosts, asked Richards, “How can you make your platform illegal substance abuse relative to our campus and how do you plan to get students engage?”
Richards responded, “It’s estimated that over 100 people die every single day from a drug overdose, many of them being from college-age. So I would like to raise awareness of just how harmful these substances can be to a human body and I would like to get them more engaged in all of the student living that we have here on campus and all the activities that our lovely student body puts on for us, so that we can be more of a combined university and less likely to get into those things.”
The new queen, who is on the Dance Team at UVU, performed a dance number as her talent. Richards is the third woman from the Dance Team to win Miss UVU in recent years.
“I feel like I didn’t really get to know Chelsi,” said MayKela Cox, who was named Spirit of the Pageant, also known as Miss Congeniality. “I hardly saw her at the workshops.”
Miss Congeniality is voted by all the contestants in the pageant and is typically someone that stands out.
“Obviously any girl that doesn’t win, it’s going to be like ‘I spend all this time energy and money on nothing’ but I think overall, if you go into the pageant with that mentality, you end up losing in the long run,” said Cox. “So if you go in expecting nothing except to learn about yourself, then you’ll always walk away from the pageant with something.”
All the contestants performed a 90-second talent including former Miss UVU Alisha Lee. After the talent portion of the show, each girl had to answer a question in front of the audience.
The night’s hosts were students Tyler Brklacich, Mr. UVU, and Lee.
The night wasn’t perfect though, according to Brklacich.
“At times, it was a little nerve-racking. The teleprompter broke and that’s why we were winging it a lot of the time, but it was good,” said Brklacich.
Despite the little details of the night, the oldest tradition of UVU goes on and the Wolverines now have a new queen.
