Serving Up Queens With Dreams

A.T.O.C. brings together three age divisions of pageant contestants in a program that focuses on fun entertainment, serious service, and a commitment to wish fulfillment.

A.T.O.C. Queens: (L-R) Mrs. America’s Touch Of Class 2006 Kim Erickson, Miss America’s Touch of Class 2006 Joanna Dobyns, and Miss Teen, America’s Touch of Class 2006 Emily Cassens.

With a commitment to forging friendship among competitors, honoring beautiful and bright women who demonstrate leadership and social skills, and promoting community-service platforms that help people at the grass roots, the America’s Touch of Class Pageant (A.T.O.C.) filled the Clark County Theater in Las Vegas earlier this year. Its ultimate goal — to crown three queens who would continue carrying out that commitment, while also producing an elegant, exciting, and entertaining on-stage competition presentation.

During the weeklong national pageant finals, the contestants were afforded ample time to have fun and get to know Las Vegas. Each night, they were able to explore all that the town had to offer, whether escorted by their husbands, with their entire families, or in groups with pageant friends. A field trip took them to the Titantic Exposé, an educational exposition relating the story of the famously ill-fated ocean liner. Also required viewing was the casino-lined Las Vegas strip, providing views of the glittering nightlife such as the fountains at the Bellagio, the replica of the Eiffel Tower, and the fabled Las Vegas wedding chapels, where couples go to marry or renew their vows in glitzy opulence. When it was time to unwind, A.T.O.C. attendees had fun around the pool — some even got involved in releasing baby birds in the casino into the pool area.

The road to reaching the 2006 A.T.O.C. finals started last year when each woman either qualified for her regional pageant and won it or was assigned a place in state finals. State winners then moved to national competition, and were judged in the following segments (with the scoring weight listed as a percentage): Interview (50%), Swimsuit (one-piece style, 25%), Evening Gown (25% ), and Final Question (10%). At stake this year were the three national titles: Mrs., Miss, and Miss Teen, as well as Miss Congeniality. Next year’s A.T.O.C. Pageant intends to add a fourth major division with a Ms. category.

The finals competition’s opening number began with the United States Marine Color Guard presenting the colors to the national anthem, and continued with the candidates wearing state costumes and entering the hall from all points of the theater, then proceding to center stage to the accompaniment of the American folk tune, “This Land is Your Land.” Each state representative announced herself and explained the reasoning behind her chice of state costume.

Next, the contestants reappeared on-stage with a change of costume — this time wearing the red and pastel colors representative of the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society — in order to deliver short speeches on the service platforms that the women were dedicated to promote. Competition grew more demanding with appearances in Swimsuit, wherein contestants entered the stage through a waterfall, and Evening Gown, in which U.S. Marines escorted the elegant ladies down a staircase and through ROTC’s sword arch and into a Southern plantation-style stage set.