"10 minutes ladies, please make sure you're ready."
Making her announcement, Mrs Aldrigde, the head chaperone at the Miss Cushing pageant and a former Miss America herself spoke to the room full of dozens of pageant queen hopefuls.
The atmosphere could be overwhelming as the impending start time dawned before any competition and this was no different.
Amongst the young women, one was less fervent about the whole competition than her peers seemed to be, the dreams of a pageant win not all her own.
"Harlene, what have I told you about frowning? Men don't want a lady with wrinkles."
Scolding her young daughter, June Harper, expected nothing less than perfection from Harlene, she knew better and she would do better.
"Sorry mama," replying, Harlene wiped any sign of a frown from her face, all smiles tonight.
"That's better."
The curtain opened and the contestants strode onstage for the introductory parade, Harlene on the arm of her boyfriend Colt Davis. An unwilling participant at first much like herself, with a lot of pleading from Harlene Colt had finally agreed to escort her, much to June's disapproval.
Forcing herself to keep smiling and at least appear to be enjoying the pageant, Harlene knew she could not disappoint her mother. A college student, she didn't have much beyond her looks and domestic abilities to fall back on, so pageantry was important, no matter her feelings.
The swimwear and eveningwear divisions progressing smoothly, the talent and question segments were up next.
"Many women in our society marry men that they do not love out of a sense of obligation. This can lead to the breakdown in traditional family values and many social complications. Do you believe that women should marry only for love, only for social standing or for other reasons?"
Harlene could feel June's eyes on her as the question was fired. But it was perfect for her as she was well trained, all Harlene needed to do was answer as she'd been taught to, however that wasn't so easy when she had feelings of her own, feelings that conflicted with her mother's worldview and belief systems.
With a deep breath and confident smile, Harlene chose to trust herself and answer the question as herself, and not her mother's mouthpiece.
"I believe that the number one reason for marriage should always be love, not money nor social status, but love. Because without a loving bond, a relationship is just a business transaction and cannot possibly banquet the genuine values that are so vital to our society. A woman should look for a man she is compatible with not only in a social and financial sense, but in an emotional sense because where there is love, there is understanding and reverence."
The judges marking their scores privately, the audience applauded, sounding persuaded. Unfortunately, there was one person sitting amongst the crowd who was not pleased with the 'love conquers all' speech that the young woman had just delivered.
Harlene moved backstage confident that she would be making the final cut as long she performed well in the talent segment.
Changing into her long, black dress, she thought about the question and the way she had answered it. Truthfully, she had had Colt in the back of her mind from the moment the question had been asked. Colt was not marriage material by the standards her mother set, a lady was to marry a gentleman and Colt was just a poor boy in her mother's eyes, but Harlene had other ideas of what a good husband was. Colt was innovative and hardworking, he may not be a rich man, but he was a good man and she loved him.
Her mother was forever setting her up on dates with rich men, most of them were conceited, tiresome or nice but lacked the chemistry and spark she had with Colt. Most recently, she had been set up with Bobby Howard, the son of a billionaire whose wealth was made in the oil, uranium, diamonds and coal industries. Bobby, or Mr Howard as she had called him their entire first meeting, was a very nice and rather attractive man, but she had stronger feelings for Colt despite his financial shortcomings.
Colt was a computing student who worked part-time at a physics lab. Harlene had met him in one of her general education classes at The University of Oklahoma. They'd spent a great deal of time together despite her full social schedule of sorority functions, cheerleading practices and modelling shoots. Eventually, Colt had asked Harlene to be his girlfriend after half a semester of 'hanging' with each other and they had been together for over a year now. Throughout their year together, Harlene had been on many 'dates' with other men to appease her mother, something Colt wasn't overly fond of but put up with as he knew she wasn't serious about any of the eligible men.
"Harlene?" snapping out of her thoughts as she heard her name being called by one of the backstage workers, she moved to the side of the stage, knowing she was up next.
Harlene's cover performance of 'My Love' by Petula Clark was met with a standing ovation and it was soon time for the finalists and the would-be winner to be announced. Standing in a row with five other beautiful girls, Harlene started to feel anxious for the first time all evening; she didn't necessarily want to win the pageant for herself however she knew her mother would be furious if she didn't.
"The fourth runner up to Miss Cushing is…" not really listening even though she should have had her full attention on the host, Harlene nearly missed the real announcement.
"Ladies and gentlemen, your new Miss Cushing is Harlene Harper", as she heard her name, her thoughts were suddenly only on the present. Had they actually called her name? They must have because the hosts were presenting her with flowers and crowning her.
Putting her best pageant smile on, she waved to the audience.
It was all a blur, the photographers, the other contestants cheering her on and her mother proudly smiling.
Hours later, after the initial chaos cleared Harlene just wanted to go home and cuddle with Colt, and she did. They spent a few relaxing hours together, celebrating her new title, but really just enjoying each other's company.
At breakfast the next morning, her picture greeted her on the front page of The Cushing Journal, her college newspaper, as well as the front page of the Eagle, a Cushing-wide publication. She was a winner, but all her mother could do was remind her that it wasn't over yet.
"You may have won this battle, you're Miss Cushing now, but Miss Oklahoma will be an even bigger challenge, and if you work hard enough you could go all the way to being Miss America".
June Harper was over the win and had moved on to the next contest.
