Shelley Kiser captures Miss Oregon title
By Troy Maben
Of The Print
“I think I have a different
look than some of the other
girls. I think my personality
made up for whatever I lacked
in beauty,” said Shelley Kiser,
the new Miss Oregon who will
be heading for the Miss USA
contest at the end of this month
in Tennessee. A second-year
student at Clackamas Com
munity College, Kiser was
selected the winner last month
in Portland from a group of
outstanding young women.
Beauty-type pageants are
not new to Miss Kiser. She has
appeared in more than 11
pageants over the years since
she was 13 years old. Her first
pageant was sponsored by
Montgomery Ward where they"
picked fifteen girls to be what
they called “pace setter
models.” She was picked for
one of the top three positions
but Kiser said “they wouldn’t
tell me which one of the top
three I was chosen for.” After
getting the attention from her
first pageant, Shelley got more
interested and involved with
contests and finally achieved
her biggest accomplishment,
the Miss Oregon title.
• Being in pageants over the
years have been Shelley’s own
decisions, and she insists that
she has even had to beg her
parents (Royce, basketball
coach here at the College, and
Patricia Kiser) to let her par
ticipate. “I think what started it
(her participation in pageants)
was that I was always real good
on stage. Even at age 13 I felt
comfortable on stage. It was
easy for me to pick up the
modeling turns and the dif
ferent things they had us do in
the modeling and self
improvement classes, so I felt
real comfortable and I had a lot
of confidence in that area.”
Kiser said her family was a
big help, especially her mother.
“My mother has been- very
helpful, I’ve almost been spoil
ed. She’s always been there to
adds his support, but in a dif
ferent way. “He doesn’t make
a big deal of it. In fact, my dad
and my little brother swear up
and down they’re there to keep
me in my place,” she said.
Kiser’s preparation for a
pageant is nearly as interesting
as the contest itself. She took
The last thing she did was a
kind of mental preparation for
herself. Just a few days before
the contest §he went to her
fitness classes as usual with no
makeup, hair unfixed, and in
. her sweat suit, and she would
stay that way until it was nearly
time to go to the pageant. So
when she looked in the mirror
after she was ready to leave,
she saw a beautiful girl, or
rather as she explained, a
much better-looking girl than
had been looking back at her
from the mirror for the last few
days.
Kiser was in the
preliminaries for thè Miss
Oregon/Miss America pag
eant, but didn’t make it into the
finals-because she felt her talent
was not up to what it needed to
be. “I was competing against
girls who were professionals at
their talent,” she said.
Shelley Kiser
clean my, clothes, because
when you’re getting ready for a
pageant the last couple of
weeks are just hectic. You
don’t have time to do anything,
you really need a second hand,
and she has always been
there.” Shelley’s father also
Photos by Troy Maben
health and fitness classes; “it
cut down on the inches,” and
she continuously practiced
mock interviews, “so when I
got on stage, or in front of the
judges, I was already able to
ânswer all the questions they
wôuld ask.” v
She was ready to quit
altogether after viewing her
talent scores. Fortunately, one
of the judges called her and
told her she ought to try out for
the other Miss Oregon. Her first
reaction was “NO, that’s for
dummies. They don’t have
talent, they don’t have to do
anything, they just sit up there
and look goocl—and that’s it!”
He convinced her, however,
that if an intelligent girl got up
there she would have just as
good a chance as anyone else
and could prove everybody
wrong by being pretty and
smart at the same time.
Kiser also explained the
difference between the two
Miss Oregon contests. She said
the Miss Oregon/Miss America
contest is essentially a talent
and beauty contest, whereas
the Miss Oregon/Miss USA is
primarily a beauty contest.
Along with (as she describ
ed) her wholesome appear
ance, it was the intelligent part
of her that won her the Miss
Oregon crown. The impromp
tu questions, which came after
the individual interviews, even
ing gown and swimsuit com
petitions, were the deciding
factor in her winning. “This was
to show whether you had some
intelligence, or just to see if you
could speak , . .1 think that is
what won it for me,” Kiser said.
In the future, Kiser ex
plained she would like to go in
to fashion buying, and if she
wins the Miss USA title possibly
acting. But for right now she is
concentrating on the national
contest, which is coming up at
the end of this month in Ten
nessee. There she will spend
three weeks competing in three
individual pageants for the title.
The first part is -the
costume contest, where con
testants don costumes re
presenting their home state.
Kiser will be a Christmas tree.
The second will be the
preliminary contest for the big
televised pageant, which will be
just like the televised one, but
with all of the . girls from every
state. The third pageant on
May 12 will be televised and
will focus on the 12 finalists
from the preliminaries.
What happens if Kiser
wins the national title? She will
travel around the country re
presenting the pageant and en
joying the luxury of the title,
which includes $70,000 in
cash, a fur coat, and an apart
ment in New York.