TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

It Won't Take Skin To Win Strawberry Pageant

ADVERTISEMENT

By GEORGE WILKENS and DAVE NICHOLSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 25, 2008

PLANT CITY - Katie Sharer recalled how nervous she was as a 16-year-old competing in a swimsuit for Florida Strawberry Festival queen.

"It's hard to be in a swimsuit in front of everybody you've ever known," said Sharer, who won the crown in 2004.

Festival organizers announced Thursday that beginning next year contenders for the title will display more brains and less skin. They raised academic requirements and eliminated the swimwear part of the annual pageant.

Swimwear will be replaced by casual wear.

Sharer said she was glad to hear the pageant is ditching bathing suits in favor of casual togs. She hoped the policy change would encourage more entries among young women in the small east Hillsborough County city. She noted many contestants are high school age, 16 or 17.

"No one wants to be half-naked on a stage in front of their hometown," she said.

Pageant officials had received complaints that some contestants were wearing swimwear that was too revealing, even though they were limited to one-piece suits. But the complaints didn't factor into the decision to replace swimwear with a casual wear competition, a pageant official said.

"Times change," said Charles Harris, chairman of the 2009 pageant for the sponsor, the Plant City Lions Club.

The change ends a longtime part of the queen's pageant, which is for Plant City area women ages 16 to 20. It is not clear when swimsuits became part of the competition founded in 1930, but it goes back for decades.

The festival queens are treated like local celebrities and help introduce headline musical acts at the annual celebration of the area's most famous agricultural crop.

Besides the switch to casual wear, the pageant also is raising academic standards for contestants, from a 2.75 grade point average to a 3.0 GPA.

The reigning queen, Kristen Smith, calls the casual wear substitution an excellent change that will save contestants from spending large sums on custom swimsuits that are not designed to get wet.

"With casual wear you get the choice of anything, and can be creative with it," said the 19-year-old. "It's something you can wear again."

Pageant swimsuits have reflective lining designed to take advantage of stage lighting, but are ruined by water, Smith said.

They run $100 to $200, with alterations adding to the cost.

"You spend so much and never use it again," she said, explaining that most pageants, which serve as preliminaries for contests such as Miss Florida, favor two-piece swimsuits.

"Nervous" summed up Smith's feelings about taking to the stage in a swimsuit. She recalled thinking: "This is the moment when everything goes bare."

Festival queen program director Sandee Sytsma, who advocated the change in attire, said it makes sense. During public appearances the queen and her court dress in casual wear, business wear or formal wear, she said, never in swimsuits.

For pageant purposes, casual wear is consistent with what the queen and court wear during the 11-day festival, from jeans and colorful tops during daylight hours, to capris and blouses in the evening.

The swimsuit competition was only 15 percent of the judging criteria, with contestants in swimsuits on stage for about 90 seconds each, Sytsma said.

"We're going to try this for a year or two," she said, "and may go back" following evaluation of the change.

Reporter Jan Hollingsworth contributed to this report. Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4433 or gwilkens@tampatrib.com. Reporter Dave Nicholson can be reached at (813) 865-4432 or dnicholson@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT