Gallery - State Competition
July 25-28, 2007
Take a tour of the fun, excitement, and experience contestants and royalty have while participating in New Mexico American Coed Pageant activities! We've collected a few pictures that represent the type of things you'll be involved with in the American Coed Pageant program. Take a look!
These are pictures from the 2007 New Mexico State competition.
2007
New Mexico American Coed Pageant Queens
(back row) Ashlynn Ota,
Albuquerque (Preteen); Alexandria McGee, Holloman AFB (Junior Teen)
Andriana Hahn (Teen), Albuquerque; Elva Murrillo, Albuquerque (Coed)
(front row) Melanie Lindahl, Albuquerque (Sweetheart);
Addison Seay, Hobbs (Petite Princess); Kaija Bales, Farmington (Princess)
Andriana Hahn (Teen), Albuquerque; Elva Murrillo, Albuquerque (Coed)
(front row) Melanie Lindahl, Albuquerque (Sweetheart);
Addison Seay, Hobbs (Petite Princess); Kaija Bales, Farmington (Princess)
2007
State Competition Candids
Here are just a few candids from the 2007 New Mexico American Coed Pageant State Finals. This event started on the evening of Wednesday, July 25th, for registration. It was followed by participation awards and crownings, workshops and rehearsals on Thursday, competitions on Friday, and awards and finale night on Saturday.
Four workshops focus on skills for all the girls. Contestants learn a dance number, prior year's Royalty provide entertainment, and all the contestants are introduced. Winners from the various optionals competitions are also invited to perform during finals night. This includes those participating in the optional fashion event. They join together to provide the audience a great fashion show! Prior year's Royalty bid the audience and the contestants goodbye.
Recognitions and awards are provided to the girls. Crowned optional competitions of Miss Victory, State Hostess and Miss Cover are presented and all the winning girls are crowned. New Royalty is announced including runners up and a queen in each age category.
You can view a 3½ minute video of the events if you can view either an MPG or WMV file. These files are about 28 megabytes in size. You might have better luck with the Flash video on our MySpace page.
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Registration
Registration included a question & answer session, and cookies and lemonade at the Albuquerque Doubletree hotel. Girls and family turned in their competition materials and learned about what's going to happen over the next few days. They met 2006 royalty and visiting royalty.
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Our
Venue
Most pageant activities for the 2007 events happened at the historic Wool Warehouse on 1st Street in Downtown Albuquerque. Wool Warehouse is at 516 First St. N.W. It is a historic landmark building, once a center for wool processing and distribution in New Mexico, it's now a renovated Art Deco facility complete with theater and ballroom dining area. It was built in 1928-29, the Downtown building originally housed the New Mexico Wool Marketing Association. The ghosts of Wool Warehouse seemed to participate in our event too, with a number of people's personal objects being taken and reappearing in areas never traveled by those persons, cold gusts, interesting effects on our performance timing, etc. Overall though, they seemed to enjoy the event.   Registration and ice cream social happened a block away at the Albuquerque Doubletree. |
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Ice
Cream Pajama Party Social
Thursday night, after a day of workshops and rehearsals, it's traditional to have a social for just the girls (new contestants and royalty) and Director. They get to meet each other at a pajama party event. Small memento gifts are often exchanged to introduce contestants home towns and interests to others. Ice cream to order is available. This year a NM Pageant Trivia game was played with prizes going to winners! It was a great relaxed evening social with the girls and the Director, where questions could be answered and thoughts could be shared about the pageant activities.           |
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| Rehearsals Often one of the most fun
events for all contestants, the production number is learned during the
pageant and performed on finale night for the audience. In 2007,
our choreographers out did themselves and produced two great number,
one for the younger girls and one for the older. That, with the
gold pants outfits, made for a spectacular show within the Hollywood
theme for the night. Girls not only learn new dance skills from a
professional, they learn how to work as a team with the other
contestants. These are skills that contribute to a lifetime. What
starts out as a mish-mash of movement and coordination ends up
after three days to be well-coordinated entertainment for the audience
and a great experience for everyone involved!
 Our choreographers from Dance Dimensions work with the younger group of girls.  Rehearsals include time for girls to practice their formal presentation on stage. The Director and Queens provide guidance and advice on how each girl can do their best. All rehearsals except for the production number are open for parents and family to watch. We keep the production number a secret as a surprise for finale night!
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Workshops
Three workshops were featured at the 2007 pageant. As one workshop, Jenny Marlowe, the 2007 Miss New Mexico came to our event to talk to all the contestants and 2006 Queens about her experiences in pageantry and any other topic the girls wished to discuss.
 2007 Miss New
Mexico,
Jenny Marlowe, with the older set of girls.
The younger girls also met with Jenny; they were in rehearsal during this photograph. Other workshops included a
lecture by a Lancôme representative on proper use of light makup
for the older girls and a lecture by the Director on a wide range of
advice on self presentation issues.
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Judges
We hope that all our judges
have fun while here, interacting with the
girls and enjoying the time here with our staff. Judges dedicate
their time to add
to the experience for our girls and provide them feedback through our
State Director. We have three independent panels of judges, one
for
our optional competitions, one for formal competitions, and one for
mini-optionals.
 Pageant Director, Michele Duran Skroch, briefs the standards and mini-optional judges before the competitions on objectives for the pageant.  Some of our judges pose for a photograph after finale night. Marcela Sandoval (Ms. Sr. NM 2006) , Desiree Whitt (Director Valencia County Cinderella Pageant), Courtney Whitley, Mrs. NM-America 2007), Dacia Rutske (Board of Dir, Miss America NM), and Amanda Foor (Mrs. Central NM 2007).  Standards judges in the theater.  Mini-Optionals judges in the theater. |
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| Optional
Competitions Optional competitions are a
great part of Pageant Weekend. There
are many optional competitions available for demonstrating a variety of
talents and skills. For all the events, our Emcee presided over
the activities. Attendance by family and friends at all events is
encouraged. They lend great support for the girls and add to the
excitement of competitions. These images were taken from the
pageant DVD.
 Our emcee for optionals and standard competition was Courney Lenberg.       |
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| Miss
Victory Miss Victory is an optional
competition that involves presentation in
formal wear and answering a random question selected from a bowl.
Question types depend on age, from our Petite Princess to Coed
categories. Runners up were awarded ribbons and winning girls are
awarded a crown, sash, and title of Miss Victory. They
participate as part of Royalty in the year's activities, and can
optionally compete at Nationals. These images were taken from the
pageant DVD.
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Mini-Optionals and Miss Glamor Miss Glamor is another optional competition that is judged simultaneously with standards by a separate panel of judges. Awards are made for best eyes, hair, interview suit, formal gown, and other categories. Those with the highest score for their age division are given the title of Miss Glamor along with a crown and banner. They serve as part of New Mexico Royalty along with winners of the Miss Victory competition and are invited to attend Nationals.
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Awards The day after optional
competitions, the award ceremony is held.
Winners and Runners-up from all the competitions are recognized.
Visiting and 2006 State Royalty hand out the awards. Only a few
of the awards are shown here.
 Girls entertain themselves and the crowd with the YMCA dance (to background music) just before Optional awards ceremony.  |
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Miss Victory
Crownings
The last event of the optionals awards ceremony is the crowning of those who won the Miss Victory competition. These girls represent the New Mexico as Royalty from the pageant and participate in the year-long events. Just like winners of other optional competitions, these girls may choose to go on to nationals to represent the state, gaining more experience, and having fun in Orlando! |
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Standard
Competition
Standard competition is comprised of an introduction, interview, and escorted formal evening wear competitions during the week. Standard events also include other pageant participation awards and entertainment. The pageant is concluded with the awards For the formal evening wear competition the contestants are escorted onto stage and present themselves while the emcee describes their outfit. These are only a few of the contestants.   Contestants and Queens wait back stage for their appearances.  |
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Recognition
& Awards
 Optionals awards ceremony includes crowning of seven Miss Victory and Seven Miss Glamor titles along with a host of other trophies, plaques, and ribbons for various talent events. |
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| Entertainment Finals night starts out with the finale production number the girls have been practicing the last three days. Some optionals winners and 2006 Royalty also entertain the crowd between standards events.    |
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Goodbyes Returning royalty makes says goodbye to the crowd before the new queens are crowned. Each of the outgoing queens is provided with gifts from their family and the pageant. They also take time throughout the end of the event to take pictures with each other and visiting guests.
 We have a goodbye video slide show of the Queen's farewell messages. It's on our MySpace Page (myspace.com/nmcoed) or select one of the video types below (we'll add more types soon): Goodbye 2007 (WMV 7 Mb) |
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Finale
Awards & Crownings
Anticipation builds toward the standard awards and crownings of our 2007 royalty. These honors are provided by the 2006 queens and visiting royalty.  All contestants await the announcement of pageant winners, our seven queens that will represent New Mexico for the coming year.  After the finale night events, some of the 2006 queens huddle on stage for sad goodbyes with the Director and encouragement of things yet to come. |
