Austin, Texas
1967
"10 minutes ladies, please make sure you're ready."
Making her announcement, Mrs Sommers, the head chaperone at the Miss Austin pageant and a former Miss America herself spoke to the room full of dozens of pageant queen hopefuls.
The atmosphere could be overwhelming as the looming start time dawned before any competition and this was no different.
Amongst the young women, one was less enthusiastic about the whole competition than her peers seemed to be, the dreams of a pageant win not all her own.
"Sue Ellen, what have I told you about frowning? Men don't want a lady with wrinkles."
Scolding her young daughter, Patricia Shepard, expected nothing less than perfection from Sue Ellen, she knew better and she would do better.
"Sorry mama," replying, Sue Ellen wiped any sign of a frown off her face, all smiles tonight.
"That's better."
The curtain opened and the contestants walked onstage for the introductory parade, Sue Ellen on the arm of her boyfriend Clint Ogden. An unwilling participant at first much like herself, with a lot of begging from Sue Ellen Clint had finally agreed to escort her, much to Patricia's disapproval.
Forcing herself to keep smiling and at least appear to be enjoying the pageant, Sue Ellen knew she could not disappoint her mother. A college student, she didn't have much beyond her looks and domestic abilities to fall back on, so pageantry was important, no matter her own personal feelings.
The swimwear and eveningwear segments progressing successfully, the talent and question segments were up next.
"Many women in our society marry men that they do not love out of a sense of obligation. This can lead to the breakdown in traditional family values and many societal problems. Do you believe that women should marry only for love, only for social standing or for other reasons?"
Sue Ellen could feel Patricia's eyes on her as the question was asked. The question was perfect for her as she was well trained, all Sue Ellen needed to do was answer as she'd been taught to, however that wasn't so easy when she had feelings of her own, feelings that conflicted with her mother's worldview and methods.
With a deep breath and confident smile, Sue Ellen chose to trust herself and answer the question as herself, not her mother's mouthpiece.
"I believe that the number one reason for marriage should always be love, not money nor social status, but love. Because without a loving bond, a relationship is just a business transaction and cannot possibly spread the genuine values that are so important to our society. A woman should look for a man she is compatible with not only in a social and financial sense, but in an emotional sense because where there is love, there is understanding and respect and most, if not all issues can be resolved with good communication and respect."
The judges marking their scores privately, the audience applauded, sounding convinced. Unfortunately, there was one person sitting amongst the crowd who was not pleased with the 'love conquers all' spiel that the young woman had been preaching.
Sue Ellen moved backstage confident that she would be making the final cut as long she performed well in the talent portion.
Changing into her long, black dress, she thought about the question and the way she had answered it. Truthfully, she had had Clint in the back of her mind from the moment the question had been asked. Clint was not marriage material by the standards her mother set, a lady was to marry a gentleman and Clint was just a poor boy in her mother's eyes, but Sue Ellen had other ideas of what a good husband was. Clint was innovative and hardworking, he may not be a rich man, but he was a good man and she loved him.
Her mother was always setting her up on dates with rich men, most of them were conceited, boring or nice but lacked the chemistry and spark she had with Clint. Most recently, she had been set up with Billy Frampton, the son of a billionaire whose wealth was made in the oil, uranium, diamonds and coal industries. Billy, or Mr Frampton as she had called him their entire first meeting, was a very nice and rather attractive man, but she had stronger feelings for Clint despite his financial shortcomings.
Clint was a computing student who worked part-time at a physics lab. Sue Ellen had met him in one of her general education classes at The University of Texas at Austin. They'd spent a great deal of time together despite her full social schedule of sorority functions, cheerleading practices and modelling shoots. Eventually, Clint had asked Sue Ellen to be his girlfriend after half a semester of 'hanging' with each other and they had been together for over a year now. Throughout their year together, Sue Ellen had been on many 'dates' with other men to appease her mother, something Clint wasn't overly fond of but put up with as he knew she wasn't serious about any of the eligible men.
"Sue Ellen?" snapping out of her thoughts as she heard her name being called by one of the backstage workers, she moved to the side of the stage, knowing she was up next to perform.
Sue Ellen's cover performance of 'My Love' by Petula Clark was met with a standing ovation and it was soon time for the finalists and the eventual winner to be announced. Standing in a row with five other beautiful girls, Sue Ellen started to feel nervous for the first time all evening; she didn't necessarily want to win the pageant for herself however she knew her mother would be furious if she didn't.
"The fourth runner up to Miss Austin is…" not really listening even though she should have had her full attention on the host, she almost missed the real announcement.
"Ladies and gentlemen, your new Miss Austin is Sue Ellen Shepard", as she heard her name, her thoughts were suddenly only on the present. Had they really called her name? They must have because the hosts were presenting her with flowers and crowning her.
Putting her best pageant smile on, she waved to the audience.
It was all a blur, the photographers, the other contestants congratulating her and her mother proudly smiling.
Hours later, after the initial chaos cleared she really just wanted to go home and cuddle with Clint, and she did. They spent a few relaxing hours together, celebrating her new title, but really just enjoying each other's company.
At breakfast the next morning, her picture greeted her on the front page of The Daily Texan, her college newspaper, as well as the front page of the Statesman newspaper, an Austin-wide publication. She was a winner, but all her mother could do was remind her that it wasn't over yet.
"You may have won this battle, you're Miss Austin now, but Miss Texas will be an even bigger challenge, and if you work hard enough you could go all the way to being Miss America".
Patricia Shepard was over the win and had moved on to the next challenge.
