Newborns Compete For Fairest Of The Fair

ABINGDON, Va. – With a rustle of ruffles, some of the fair’s tiniest competitors make their way, with their mommies, to the front of the Washington County Fairgrounds’ main building.

It’s hot, and some of them are in need of a nap. Others just look around, wide-eyed, wondering what’s going on.

As families around the county prepare to enter agricultural products in the fair, which begins next weekend, mothers competed Sunday for top honors with another set of accomplishments: this year’s crop of babies.

The Fairest of the Fair Beauty Contest lets young girls and baby boys – newborns and up – compete for beauty titles just like older girls do.

“This is our fun time,” said Kelly Buchanan as her daughter, beauty competitor Shakira Robinette, sat in a stroller staring at a fan that was running to
cool the non-air-conditioned building.

She said she spent $40 to enter Shakira in the contest, another $20 to enter her in the photo contest and another $17 at a consignment store for her dress. As a working mother, she said, the $77 she spent is a pageant entry on a budget.

Allison Blaylock, whose 11-month-old daughter, Karlie, also was a competitor on Sunday, said her daughter was sponsored into the contest by her sister-in-law’s business. She got the dress from a friend and the shoes from a cousin.

Polly Roark, whose 2-year-old daughter Emily competed, said local pageants like this one afford an opportunity to compete for girls whose families don’t have the thousands of dollars it can take to participate in larger events.

She said that – as well as the winners’ opportunity to ride through downtown Abingdon in the county fair’s parade kickoff – is why some people take this one seriously.

“They’re fun, and they’re something a little girl can do,” Roark said. “Kind of like football for boys, and basketball, things like that. With a girl, there’s not much you can do except for pageants and ballet. And pageants are cheaper than ballet.”

As Emily bounded around the fan in her $150 yellow pageant dress, Roark said a lot goes into getting a toddler ready to compete.

“First you have to pick out a dress [and] they have to have certain socks and shoes,” she said. “Getting them ready is really hectic because they don’t want to sit still at this age.”

But, she said, it’s a great opportunity for little girls who love to dress up as princesses.

Nineteen-month-old Caitlin Arnold snacked on popcorn Sunday – while wearing her sequined blue dress – as family friend Kathy Scott put the finishing touches on her picture-perfect hairstyle.

Scott, when asked what’s most important in getting babies ready to compete in a beauty contest, focused on the basics: make sure they’re well rested and that they’ve eaten.

For many of the girls – between 30 and 50 percent, said beauty contest co-director Judie Wilson – this pageant is a step to larger ones.

It takes just one quick tour of the Internet to see the broad extent of pageants – and pageant preparation services – that exist for young children.

There are beauty consultants, makeup artists, wardrobe consultants, photographers, hairstylists and custom-made dresses that cost $450 and up for infants, all centered around beauty pageant competition.

Even for babies and toddlers, beauty pageants go all the way up to the national level, said Annette Hill, director of a national Austin, Texas-based pageant system called Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant.

She said pageants like hers have been around for a long time – and they’re big business. Even for babies and toddlers, national contests can charge entry fees as high as $5,000.

But, she said, even with the high cost of competition, some families actually make a living on the cash and other prizes they win when their children compete.

“You’re always going to have parents who want to showcase their kids,” Hill said. “It’s your choice to just do the local thing and have fun, but if your child wins you get kind of an adrenaline rush and you want to go to the next level.”

Wilson, whose five daughters have competed in pageants and won various titles, said while beauty pageants have their share of controversy, the experience overall has been positive for her family.

She said the main thing is to keep it fun for the kids – and take the losing with the winning.

“We’ve seen mothers come in here that were just absolutely furious that their child didn’t win,” Wilson said.

But, she said, the pageant only determines “who is the prettiest baby with the best personality at the time of competition.”

She said babies especially are judged on natural beauty and personality – and sometimes if a child is teething or in need of a nap, it can impact the
judges’ decision; that doesn’t mean the child isn’t beautiful.

Wilson said judging babies is hard because all babies are beautiful in their own way.

“I think I have the most beautiful baby in the world,” Blaylock said when asked if her daughter was the most beautiful in the county. “I think all mothers think that.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701