I still remember driving home one Saturday afternoon;

the date was September 15, 1984, to be exact. I was only

vaguely aware of the radio until the newscaster announced

that Miss Utah, Sharlene Wells, was one of the ten finalists

for that evening s Miss America pageant.

Although I knew only a few specifics about Sharlene, I

certainly knew who she was. She was the reigning Miss Utah,

BYU homecoming queen, Holiday Bowl queen, a former

Utah Junior Miss, and a daughter of Elder Robert E. Wells of

the First Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints. Associates at the publication

where I work had encouraged me to publish an article about

LDS pageant winners. I had resisted, insisting that readers

expected more from us than reports on beauty pageants.

Perhaps you can tell that I have never put much stock in

the beauty pageant system and, by inference, beauty pageant

contestants, I have tended to dismiss bathing beauties with a

wave of the hand and the notion that, collectively, they rely

too much on looks and not nearly enough on brains, person-

ality, talent, and character.

Nevertheless, I found myself watching the Miss America

t that evening (a first for me), and I admit that, de-

y preconceived bias, I was thrilled when Gary Collins

called out Sharlene s name as the new Miss America. It al-

most seemed like a blow for the little man, or girl--a girl

from Utah, and a member of the Church, no less.