Letter to the Editor - Beauty Pageant - 10/31/2011

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Published on Monday, 31 October 2011 15:02

Dear Editor, 

Fantastic, historic, amazing, superb, unique, fun…great words, but truly only one word sums up the 50th anniversary celebration of our Miss Elk City / Miss Queen of the West pageant, and that word is INDESCRIBABLE!!!  If you were there for the cabaret or the pageant, you know what I am talking about; if you weren’t, you missed one of the biggest nights in the history of Elk City! A mere thank you seems so inadequate for all Susan Powell did to make this event what it was.  From her cabaret on Thursday evening that raised $8000 (which Susan donated entirely back to the pageant) to her performances Saturday night during the pageant and to her involving our many former queens who came back to help us celebrate, she amazed us and went above and beyond all we could ever have dreamed.

A big thank you to Lake Carpenter for his fabulous job of emceeing and directing the pageant along with Lori Daubenspeck, and the other faithful pageant board members who include Juanita Wham, Karen Blanton, Shana Dyson, Jill Cowan, Lori Weatherly, Tawana Thomas, Shannan Cloud, Stephanie Ellis and Lauren Williamson.  What a fun, hard-working crew!!!

It was great to have our outgoing queens, Sarah Simpson, Miss Elk City, and Tiffany Legg, Miss Queen of the West, share their talent and grace with us, and Sarah, what can I say but “over the top” for all you did to help prepare our Miss Elk City contestants night after night and your extra encouragement and involvement in Friday’s dress rehearsal.

Then I must mention Derek Manning at the Daily Elk Citian and all your staff, especially Traci Morgan and Dale Denwalt for the “Identify the Former Queens” contest as well as Derek Brown for all the coverage you provided!!!

Another huge thanks goes to all those who gave scholarships including Elk City’s Rotary Club (and those handsome ushers), Cheryl Shields (plus all your time and money preparing the pageant judges’ books and support materials), Don and Juanita Wham, Lora and Karen Blanton, TLR Well Services, Elk City Lions Club, Bank of Western Oklahoma, Great Plains National Bank, First National Bank and Trust, Legacy Bank, the Elks Lodge, Elk City Kiwanis, Xi Zeta Delta, Gladys Simmons, Dr. L.V. and Pat Baker, Lou and Sharon Ansley Wallace, Whinery-Savage Funeral Service, Cultus Club and Arimathea Club.

Special thanks also goes to Superintendent Buddy Woods and Elk City Public Schools as well as Justin Ediger for all you did, Troy and Sharon Jones of Troy Jones Equipment, the Elk City Convention & Visitors Bureau, Barber Dyson Ford, Brittney Litke of the Clarion Inn and Belinda Edler of the Hampton Inn for providing rooms for our judges, Ann Smith from the Standifer House for the room for Susan Powell, Simons’s Catch for the fabulous meal for our judges, Gigi Smith and Becky Green for the amazing food and Gigi’s home for the pageant interviews, our auditors Jill Cowan and Karen Blanton, Danny Ogles and his team for the lighting, sound and production, stage crew Basil Weatherly and Brandon Lathrom, Carol Wilson for all your help, Broadway Flowers for the queens’ bouquets and stage decorations, Bill Helton for that amazing crown and other stage enhancements, Hylton’s Elk City Floral for the unbelievable gift baskets for Susan Powell and Phillip Fortenberry, the Vogue Boutique and Mane Attraction for selling tickets, Cable One, the city of Elk City, KECO and KKZU for the special interviews and extra coverage and Davis Printing for donating color for the photos in our beautiful commemorative program book.

To all those who purchased ads in our program book, wow, what an investment you made, and we appreciate it more than you will ever know.  It is folks like you we can count on to help pull off an event of this magnitude, and it will not soon be forgotten.

Thank you western Oklahoma for supporting our pageant these last 50 years, and I’m not sure we can ever top this memorable event, but we will do our best to continue to make it one of the premiere pageants across Oklahoma!

Most sincerely,
Ronda Mikles