Brad Walsh

Bangor? I Hardly Know Her!

I’m currently several miles above the Earth using internet on the plane. We’re literally flying first class, up in the sky, popping champagne, and living the life. Though apparently “the life” also includes triple screenings of Wall-E. We are heading home from LA and the AMAs, but first I’m going to do a little recap of the pageant I judged before that.

Lovely Mackenzie Davis asked me to be a judge for the Miss Maine USA and Miss Maine Teen USA pageants to determine who in 2009 would go on to Miss USA in Vegas and possibly Miss Universe. I’ve never done anything like that before, but of course I said yes. Big time pageant judging? You don’t decline this sort of offer. It was so much fun, and I think we picked the right people. My friend Nancy Schuster (PR girl extraordinaire) was also a judge, so I had some good company!

Nancy and I flew in to Portland, ME on Friday and proceeded to stick out like sore thumbs for two and a half days. We made friends with Amy Diaz, 2008’s Miss Rhode Island USA, who too was a judge. Love her. We had a really great time, and it was actually really hard work. There were many walks, personal one-on-one interviews with every single contestant for both pageants, excessive note taking and difficult decisions. We ended up choosing Ashley Underwood for Miss Maine USA 2009 and Jordan Shiers for Miss Maine Teen USA 2009. Ashley’s a current school nurse and former pro Swiss basketball player. She was so great to talk to, very smart and comfortable, beautiful and driven, I really think it was the right choice. Jordan was the perfect teen-y type to go on to Miss Teen USA, also very nice to talk to and smart. But there were a lot of really great contenders, so it was difficult to have to choose just one for each contest.

I was skeptical going in, but it turned out to be a really cool experience! There were certainly some classic stereotypical “pageant” moments — including some colorful mothers and some literally colorful contestants — and I think the family of one bottom contestant called me obscene names on my walk through the hall post-show. I would definitely do it again. It’s another world.