Swimsuits, evening gowns and witty responses will give beauty pageants new meaning Wednesday night in the University Center Commonwealth Auditorium, as the Alan Buzkin Bone Marrow Drive hosts the seventh annual “Mr. William & Mary Pageant” from 8 to 11 p.m.
p. Eleven students will seek the campus crown by competing in four different contests typical of any beauty pageant. Tickets are $3 at the door, and all proceeds benefit the College’s Bone Marrow Drive.
p. The first is an evening attire display, which will be followed by a swimsuit competition. Next, contestants will pit their skills against one another in a not-so-typical talent show. Finally, a question-and-answer session moderated by Government Professor Clay Clemens will conclude the event. However, unlike your everyday beauty pageant, it is unlikely that the questions will concern world peace or similarly rosy topics.
p. “It really is a play on the whole pageant idea,” Bone Marrow Drive Campus Events Chair senior Kate Cunningham said. Cunningham referred to the questions that are posed to each candidate at the end of the show as “kind of ridiculous.”
p. “Last year, one question was ‘So, I recently had a man crush; who’s your man crush?” she said. Senior Tim Boykin, who along with fellow senior SA president Ryan Scofield has participated in the event for four consecutive years, said that he was once asked if he would eat himself were he a hot dog. “I said yes,” he said.
p. “I’ve never cracked the top five,” Boykin said. “I really like the feeling of entertaining people. Some people still remember me chugging six cans of fruit punch. I think that was my best talent.”
Boykin’s pageant coach, senior Mike Golub, is hopeful that this year’s event will yield a more desirable result. “You’d think Tim would have learned after three years of failure,” he said. “But the kid’s got heart, and you can’t teach that.”
p. The event will be hosted by Greg Teich, ’06, and will include judging by Associate Director of Student Activities Anne Arseneau, as well as Clemens and Larry “CafMan” Smith.
p. The contestants include returning hopefuls Boykin, Scofield and Ryan Clark — all seniors. Joining them from the class of 2007 are Scott Brown, Chris Edwards and Sam Bandstra. Juniors Dexter Bush-Scott, Andrew Cunningham and Pat Donaldson, along with sophomores Greg Collins and Dan Gormally, will round out the field.
