Young Miss North Carolina Ashlee Perkinson wasn’t the only member of her family to walk off the stage a winner at the Little Miss North Carolina pageant last month.
Her mother, Susan Rogers, was named Director of the Year, recognizing her as the best among the more than 30 men and women who run preliminaries to the state pageant.
Rogers is the founder and director of the Little Miss Kerr Lake pageant, which will hold its fourth edition in February.
“It was the first award I have every received, and I was just tickled to death,” Rogers said during a recent interview.
But the surprise prize came at a price: Rogers, who has no desire to perform and no secret dreams to be a beauty queen herself, had to get on the stage in Hickory and dance.
“I walked in the room and saw my mom onstage and dancing, and I just shook my head and sighed,” Ashlee said.
“I was shocked, but I was happy, obviously,” Rogers said. “All my little girls were there cheering for me: ‘Go, Miss Susan!’ ”
It’s her care for those little girls that won Rogers an award usually reserved for veteran pageant directors, Ashlee said. “She helps out so much with her girls. There’s not any other director that’s involved like she is. I’ve been to a pageant before where I’ve seen my director the day I won the title and I didn’t see them again” until the next year’s pageant.
It was her own little girl’s interest in pageants that led Rogers to launch Little Miss Kerr Lake, even though Ashlee isn’t allowed to compete in the pageant because of anti-nepotism rules.
When Ashlee was 12 and first competed at Little Miss North Carolina on the strength of a runner-up finish at a preliminary in Sanford, Rogers watched another Henderson girl, BrieAnna Hester, win Junior Miss North Carolina as a representative of Wake County. Rogers was bothered that Henderson had no preliminary for the state pageant.
“That’s how Little Miss Kerr Lake came about,” Rogers said, “because I just did not think it was fair to have all these talented and beautiful girls here, and they couldn’t represent Henderson and the Kerr Lake area. They were representing other cities.”
Like many of the Little Miss preliminaries, the Kerr Lake pageant is open to any North Carolina resident age 15 months to 18 years. Eventually, Rogers would like to limit entries to girls in Vance and surrounding counties, but the pageant isn’t established enough yet.
It has grown each year, from 23 contestants to 27 to 35 this year. Rogers’ goal is 50 contestants, a level she thinks is possible for the fifth annual pageant in 2007.
Running the pageant is a labor of love for Rogers, who said she works for months to prepare for the all-day event, collapses for a week afterward, then begins preparing qualifiers for the state pageant.
Ashlee can’t compete, but she emcees the pageant with Mike Brooks. This year her mom even got Ashlee to sing “We’re Having a Pageant,” a takeoff of Shania Twain’s “We’re Having a Party.”
The teen beauty queen, whose talent is piano playing, insists she won’t be making any repeat performances with her voice.
“She was embarrassed,” Rogers said. “Everyone else loved it.”
The Little Miss Kerr Lake girls compete in seven age groups. The pageant also awards an overall winner, called a majestic, for girls 6 and under (Mini Majestic Miss Kerr Lake) and those 7 and older (Majestic Miss Kerr Lake).
Any girl who finishes in the top five at any level is eligible for the Little Miss North Carolina pageant if she wants to go. Whether the girls are experienced competitors or pageant newcomers, Rogers is prepared to spend months helping them practice and get the right clothes and the right look for the state competition.
She took 11 girls to the state pageant this year, more than any other preliminary, and for the second time in three years, a Little Miss Kerr Lake qualifier won a state title. Harley Hardison of Roseboro, who competed as a 3-year-old and turned 4 a few days after the state pageant, was named Miniature Miss North Carolina.
Both of the Little Miss Kerr Lake contestants who won state titles were runners-up in the local pageant. “It just goes to show you,” Rogers said. “Different day, different judge, different circumstances. You never know how it’s going to play out.”
Rogers has no sponsor and relies on the support of her husband, Jay, and fundraising by contestants to keep the show going. The next fundraiser will be Monday, Aug. 29, when the girls will sell $6 fish plates at 220 Seafood from 4 to 7 p.m.
The Little Miss Kerr Lake court is visible in the community for much more than fundraisers for the pageant. The girls make appearances at Britthaven to visit the retirees, for example, and they ring the bell outside Wal-Mart for the Salvation Army at Christmastime. They appeared at the construction celebration for the Embassy Square library April 1. Whenever the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce has a ribbon cutting, groundbreaking or other event, you can be certain some of the local beauty queens will be there.
At each pageant, two of the reigning beauty queens — one 6 and under, the other 7 and up — are named grand majestics, indicating that they did the most to represent the Little Miss Kerr Lake title during the year. The reigning Miss North Carolina crowns them.
The most involved girls in the current court are Baby Doll Rorie Brewer, 3; Grand Mini Majestic Hannah Brewer, Rorie’s 5-year-old sister; and Junior Miss Hannah Powell. About the Brewer sisters, Rogers said: “I believe if I told them I had a ribbon cutting at 2 a.m., they’d be there with their crowns and their sashes and stand there and smile and smile.”
Rogers said she wouldn’t go to the trouble if she weren’t a big believer in the Little Miss pageant system, which she said promotes scholastic achievement, the performing arts and “just being your personal best.”
“It’s not for everybody,” Rogers said of the pageant world, “but everything’s not for everybody.”