Talent is where Miss Chesapeake can go all wrong

CHESAPEAKE

Karate. Comedy. Piano. Singing. And dancing.

Lots and lots of dancing.

It was the talent portion of last Saturday's Miss Chesapeake competition held at Greenbrier Middle School.

Tiffany Miles danced hip-hop in an eye-catching get-up of a tutu and tights she tabbed "my pink highlighter." Shannon Lloyd glided contemporary to Leeann Rimes' "What I Cannot Change." Felecia Baker performed classical ballet, and Jasmine Canady jazz danced to music from "Hairspray."

In the end, the talent winner was also the overall winner. Crystal Brickhouse, Miss Chesapeake 2011, wowed folks with a violin rendition of Celtic Woman's "Butterfly."

Standing at the stage's edge, wearing a brilliant red gown, the animated Brickhouse played flawlessly and moved as effortlessly in heels as most of us do in sneakers.

"I love to perform," said Brickhouse, who is in dental school at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. "I used to be first chair at Greenbrier Middle, so being out there is really surreal to me."

Some girls love the talent part of a pageant. Others dread it. It is worth 35 percent of a contestant's overall score - the most weighted category of them all. Years ago girls had three minutes to strut their stuff. That has been cut to 90 seconds - time that goes by in a blink but can seem like forever if things go awry.

And talent is the area where things seem to go the most wrong.

"It's the only area you can't control," said contestant Me'Shel Joe.

Caitlin Uze, the current Miss Virginia and the master of ceremonies for the Miss Chesapeake pageant, weathered a mishap at Miss America.

"I had 3-1/2 minutes to change during live TV," said Uze, whose talent was Irish dance. Uze had to strip off her dress and put together an entirely different kind of ensemble, which includes duct-taping the microphone into her tights to enhance the sound of her clogs.

"I'm pulling up my stockings, and all of the sudden, there's this huge rip up the side," she said. "I had to go out there and hope nobody noticed."

Betty Shifferly, the longtime Miss Chesapeake producer, recalls when a contestant dropped her baton while performing too close to the backdrop, which came crashing down.

Shifferly was also on hand during rehearsal at Miss Virginia when Kylene Baker, eventual Miss America in 1979, caught her toe while running off stage after rehearsing her gymnastics routine.

"She broke her toe," Shifferly said. "My claim to fame was icing it back to health."

Shifferly's sister, Dawn White and the co-producer of Miss Chesapeake, tried to help out a young contestant at a junior pageant struggling with the words to a song.

"We're going along and I was singing the wrong song," White said.

ODU student and Miss Chesapeake contestant Lina Sendling jokes about being talentless - at least when it comes to traditional performing. "I'm tone deaf; I can't dance," she said. "I can alphabetize, but I can't do that on stage."

Instead she relies on comic monologues and survived last year despite the microphone slipping into her underwear during her performance. On Saturday she wasn't as fortunate. Pony-tailed and dressed in one-piece pajamas with feet, Sendling planned to recite Shel Silverstein's poem "Sick." It chronicles Little Peggy Ann McKay's multiple excuses for not wanting to go to school only to realize it's Saturday.

Seconds into it, Sendling forgot the words, tried to continue and stumbled through despite a supportive audience cheering her on.

"I blanked," said Sendling, who recovered nicely for the evening-gown portion. "That has never happened before."

Many contestants use the talent portion to convey something personal in their lives. Lloyd chose the Rimes song to dance to because the lyrics have special meaning to her.

"I had an eating disorder, and my platform is eating-disorder awareness," said the Hickory High graduate who is now at James Madison University. "The song tells the story of my recovery."

First runner-up and pianist Madeleine Raiford plays an emotional classical Spanish piece dedicated to her grandmother.

"My mom heard it first and told me I would love it," she said. "I think my passion comes through."

Longtime pageant contestants generally love the limelight and stress the need to de-stress when it's showtime.

The reigning Miss Chesapeake, Rosemary Willis, grew up on stage. Her rousing vocal rendition a year ago of "Orange Colored Sky" was a crowd favorite.

Donned in a white flapper outfit this year, Me'Shel Joe belted out "Almost There" from "The Princess & the Frog." Phyllicia Whittingham stirred the audience with "Great Balls of Fire" on piano.

"I try to wow myself when it's time to perform," Lloyd said. "If I'm enjoying myself onstage and having fun, it should come through on stage."

Vicki L. Friedman, (757) 222-5218, vicki.friedman@pilotonline.com