Spring Forum

This is a weekend meeting that all the Miss Washington Contestants and directors get together. We go over the things we need for Miss WA week and a chance for all the directors to get to know each other and the contestants too. This year we have twenty-two contestants from across WA State all vying for the title of Miss WA. The girls are all super sweet and full of excitement for the pageant week to start. During the weekend while directors attended meetings, we the contestants had workshops to attend. The three we went to were, financial workshop, color workshop and a children's miracle network workshop. This year we have made a partnership with the CMN (Children's Miracle Network) and it has got some red flags from many of us because we now have to raise money for CMN to be able to participate in Miss WA. The Miss America Organization has always been a non-profit organization and still is....contestants have never had to pay an entry fee to compete in the pageant and having to raise money for the program to compete has now been labeled as the entry fee. We all think its wonderful to raise the money for this program but to make a certain dollar amount demanded to be able to compete made some of us contestants upset...because our program has never been about that. We had a guest speaker about the program and the benefits that go to CMN as well as MAO (Miss America Organization) and after that we felt better about the new partnership. After a long day of workshops we joined Kristen Eddings (Miss Washington 2006) for a pajama party in the directors suit. This was a bonding experience for all of us girls as well as a way to ask Kristen many questions about her year as Miss WA and about her time at Miss America. (by the way she was top ten at Miss America and broke the record, first Miss WA contestant in top ten i 16 years. GO KRISTEN YOU ROCK) She showed us a video that had interviews from Miss America. There was all the top five contestants and Kristen's interview on it. Kristen must have been so amazing in her interview because she got to be on the tape with all the top five contestants and they were mailed to all other states as well. No one ever sees the personal interviews, so seeing this tape was awesome because we got to see what the interviews were like at Miss America. The last day of the weekend we all performed our Miss WA talent...this is my favorite part about the show is to see what everyone else's talents are. They are always so entertaining. After this weekend we will rejoin during the Miss WA week....yay I'm so excited for the show.