Advertisement The preliminaries on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday each began with 53 young women dancing to the song, and by the time the televised Miss America finale rolled around, the chorus rang true. I was convinced that “tonight’s going to be a good night” was destiny for Miss Wisconsin Kristina Smaby.
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Even a hardboiled newspaper editor like Randy Erickson, left, couldn’t resist the urge to have his picture taken with Miss Wisconsin Kristina Smaby after Tuesday’s preliminary competition for the Miss America pageant at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. For more photos from Miss America week in Las Vegas, check out the online photo gallery. Also, check out the daily dispatches from Miss America week and video from Las Vegas in our special Miss America section. |
The night before, Smaby had been one of 12 Miss America contestants featured on a pageant preview show, voted onto the show by fellow members of her Alpha group. The public was given the chance to text in their votes for the 12, with the top three or four getting a place among the top 15 finalists.
If it had come down to a vote of the supporters in the audience at the Planet Hollywood Theater, Smaby would have been a hands-down winner. By Saturday night, the “Smaby Nation” had grown to about 200 very vocal people armed with placards, glow sticks and at least a few cowbells.
After Friday’s show, Smaby supporters texted their votes then fanned out across Las Vegas to find more voters. One group was riding on the Las Vegas’s doubledecker bus, known as the Deuce, and heard a passenger say “Tomah.” The fellow Wisconsinites were immediately inducted into the Smaby Nation.
Smaby’s uncle, John Petry, and her brother, Ben, were with a small group at a McDonald’s on the Strip. People might have come in for a burger, but they got a side of Smaby as a bonus. I also heard about basketball games back in the Coulee Region at which the announcer told people to text their votes for Smaby.
Knowing what I knew about the vigor with which Smaby’s supporters push their cause, I thought there was a pretty good chance she would be one of the top votegetters. I was about as shocked and dismayed as any Smaby Nation member when Miss America host Mario Lopez announced three names, and none of them was Kristina Smaby.
Still, there were 11 more finalists’ names coming from the celebrity judges, who had sized up the contestants during the course of the three preliminary competitions. Surely Smaby’s name would be among the judge’s favorites, right?
Nope.
But wait, that’s only 14. What’s going on? Right there on stage, on live TV, the remaining contestants were surprised with a new wrinkle. They were given ballots and told to vote for one fellow contestant to round out the 15 finalists.
Well, this had to go Smaby’s way. I had known her since 2003, when she was a junior at Holmen High School, and I’d never met a young woman more pleasant, cheerful and friendly. That would be very apparent to her fellow contestants after what they’d been through together, I figured. I braced myself for the roar to come from the Smaby Nation when Lopez announced Smaby’s name.
But it wasn’t her.
Smaby and the other nonfinalists were whisked backstage during a commercial break and changed into street clothes. They watched the rest of the competition seated onstage as the 15 were gradually whittled down to five. She changed into her evening gown during the last commercial break and was back onstage in all her sparkly glory for the big announcement. There she is, Miss America ... Miss Virginia Caressa Cameron.
I want to believe I know what Smaby was going through. I, too, had tasted bitter disappointment and setbacks during my trip to Las Vegas and back.
First, I was driving to the Twin Cities through the blowing snow on Highway 61. I was going to have a nice dinner with my parents when I got there, then get a good night’s sleep before an early morning flight to Las Vegas. As I neared Wabasha, Minn., I realized that my camera bag was back at the office, not in the back seat.
Arriving in Las Vegas Tuesday morning after a smooth flight, I checked into my room at Planet Hollywood. Going in the bathroom for the first time, I was confronted by a ghoulish portrait of the Crypt Keeper. Turns out that of all the great movies ever made, the decor for my room had been drawn from “Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight.”
That was nothing, though, compared with the sinking feeling I got that night at the first preliminary. With my press pass, I had been given a good seat from which to view the competition. I’d been merrily shooting photos all night, dreading the thought of having to pick favorites from all those shots.
During a lull in the action late in the event, I decided to have a look at the pictures. BLACK! All the photos I’d taken that evening except the first two were completely black. Turns out the camera had a big problem and was completely useless to me.
Luckily, Luann Dibb, a great photographer from Holmen whose daughter is a close friend of Smaby, offered to let me use her very nice, very expensive camera for Thursday night’s preliminary.
I finished writing my daily dispatch for the La Crosse Tribune with about 20 minutes to spare. I grabbed a notebook and took a few steps toward the door, hoping I wouldn’t have any trouble finding Dibb to get her camera.
I checked my pockets to make sure I had my ticket. I didn’t. I emptied my pockets, looked all around the room, and I had no ticket.
I hustled down to the theater, then to the press room, to see if anybody could help me, but I was out of luck.
I went back to my room, ready to spend a quiet, sad night contemplating my stupidity. Suddenly I realized I hadn’t checked the garbage. Between updating Web sites, creating online photo galleries, writing a story and editing videos, I hadn’t been out of the room long enough that day to have the maid service come in, but I had tidied up a little myself. Turns out I had thrown the ticket in the trash.
Maybe the elation of finding the ticket comes close to what it might have felt like for Smaby to hear her name announced as a finalist. But probably not. I hadn’t spent months preparing for the grandmother of all pageants. I didn’t have a “nation” watching my every move, counting on me.
And my disappointments — the forgotten and then broken camera, the spooky bathroom picture, the missing ticket — undoubtedly pale next to the dashed dreams of Smaby, who so wanted to give her former dance students and other supporters something to cheer about.
Funny thing is, after I filed my final story for the Tribune that Saturday night, I went down to the Planet Hollywood ballroom to see what was happening at the post-pageant reception. The place was clearing out fast, but there was Smaby, cheerful as ever, posing for pictures with all comers, resplendent in her beaded evening gown.
Smaby’s family graciously invited me to go to dinner with them, and I’ll always remember the sight of Smaby, a giant plate of nachos in front of her, grinning as she spun tales of an experience so few ever know.
It was an exciting and exhausting week for both of us, but only one of us was still sparkling at the end of Miss America week in Las Vegas. I don’t think I have to tell you it wasn’t me.
