The first time I competed was in 2002. I was living in Wichita Falls and won the local prelim there. I advanced to the state pageant that was held in Dallas at The Village Station. (The Village is known today as S4 located on Cedar Springs Ave.) My first year was rough. I had to fake a death of my Grandmother in order to get the time off from work. I borrowed a nice gown from a friend in Lawton. It was hard to bring props and dancers from back home for a week. I had the cost of hotel and food for a week to deal with too. The pageant was four days back then. The number of contestants made it the biggest state pageant in the MGA system. I did my Bubba Talent. It was a trailer park theme. It was a crowd pleaser, but the judged didn’t think to highly of comedy talents at that level. We had 45 contestants, I had a solid showing, but I was not in the top ten that year. I was 12th. That was the highest any girl from Wichita Falls had ever placed. Then life set in there after. My mom got sick and found myself moving to Dallas. My life needed my attention, so drag was secondary. I did some other local pageants but I did not return to MGT pageant until 2009. I was working at Illusions on Maple in Dallas. The bar owners of Illusions had recently taken over the pageant. They asked me to enter the Miss Cedar Springs Prelim. Yes, I was ready to make my return back to the America system. I had competed in other systems but none seemed to fit as well for me as America. Other pageants were geared toward transsexuals and not a true female impersonator. I mean, where is the female illusion if you have female breasts/hormones? I placed 1st alternate. I had my ticket. I was on my way. I got together my best pageant package. There were ten contestants at the state pageant. Miss Texas seemed to be on the decline. Mostly due to poor owners in the past five years. But somehow it was holding on. I finally had my own competition gown. My gown scored well at Miss Texas. It was black satin with trumpet skirt, silver,ab crystals and hand beaded at the neck line, hips and knees. It looked like a sea of stars. I felt as beautiful as the night sky in that gown. I made that gown for myself and it looked amazing on stage. Interview was great . I was second overall. And my talent placed high too. I did my first version of Hairspray. (I would do it again later but did the role of Motor Mouth Maybell) This time I was Tracey. I have 4 songs mixed into one medley. It started with Good Morning Baltimore, then I can hear the bells and then Welcome to the 60’s. And the finale was You can’t stop the beat. My friend had built the props and I helped paint and glitter them. We even had the standing bed just like the broadway production. I was so happy all my costume changes were timed perfectly. I under dressed my costumes to make it faster. I remember yelling at my sister back stage during one of the 10 second costume changes. “come on, come on, come on. zip it. ” She did a great job changing me. The judges loved the costumes and admired how smooth the changes were. They never knew that I finished talent with my real hair zipped in the back of my last dress. No one knew it but me and my sister. I just kept smiling and dancing. There were several girls in the pageant that were expected to place high in rank. I had worked with Onyx, Aspen Tyler, and Heather Skyy at Illusions. All were very strong entertainers. I had to politely ask them to step aside when they called my name for 2nd alternate. I was blown away. I smiled so big. I had done it. I had broken through into the top group. I was ecstatic to hear my name in the top three and happy see Onyx crowned Miss Texas that year.
The next year flew by, I had continued to work in Fort Worth shows. I did any and every show I could get into. I need the exposure. I needed the backing of Ft Worth. I pulled several resources in order to be ready for the next Miss Gay Texas. Unfortunately, MGT was plagued with continued problems, but the show went on. This time I wanted to push what I was doing. I loved my talent from the year before but was scared to try it again. I did Big Blonde and Beautiful from Hairspray. I had done a spin on it, by staging it in a beauty parlor. I had Tracy ( my sister Wendy) and Edna ( Amber Daniels) come to get their hair done. Then Motor Mouth Maybell give them a make over. It was a great idea, I had the biggest production of all the contestants. I had built back drops, made costumes included back up people. Including my real sister Wendy as Tracy. She looked so cute. ( I was proud of her, she never did any stage work before.) The judges did not seem to impressed and scored my in the middle of the pack. They did not seem impressed with my beautiful new gown either. Overall, I was 2nd alternate…again. Gizelle Ashton won. I took this very hard. I was crushed. I didn’t think I would ever recover. But sometimes you have to put things away emotionally until you know what to do with them. So I did. Then about a month later, it was time to figure out what I had missed. My Q and A, was my down fall. I chocked. I knew exactly what to say, but fumbled as I said it. Damn. I took time to work on my emotional self and again learn from the last pageant.
Last night Sally contacting me. I was like -WTF. I was shocked. I thought MGT pageant was dead. I told her yes I was interested. I am not the girl I was a year ago. I feel strong and I am ready. Sally seemed plase with my decsion to come back and compete again. I have done the work, now its time to shine again. Now, it is up to me to pull this together. I am waiting for the detail to unfold from the MGA organization. There have been no prelims this year, so I assume everyone will enter the state pageant directly. I need a sponsor and I have one up my sleeve. I will be making some contacts this weekend. I hope they say yes. This is the start of something big, I can feel it.
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