Gilroy
– Garlic and young women are not a typical pair. This Saturday,
however, will mark the 29th annual coupling of these two elements
as six girls forget about their breath and show off their love of
garlic at the Miss Gilroy Garlic Festival Queen Pageant held at the
Gavilan College Theatre.
Gilroy – Garlic and young women are not a typical pair. This Saturday, however, will mark the 29th annual coupling of these two elements as six girls forget about their breath and show off their love of garlic at the Miss Gilroy Garlic Festival Queen Pageant held at the Gavilan College Theatre.
This year’s queen, Sheena Torres, will hand off her crown to the next young woman picked by the judge to be the best representative for the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
“Basically they’re ambassadors for the festival,” said Traci Dalke, chairwoman of the pageant.
The winner of the pageant typically spends the next year doing promotional work for the Garlic Festival, including radio or television spots and in person appearances at a variety of events. The winner also helps to plan and run the pageant for the following year.
In return, the winner receives a scholarship for $1,000 from the festival and has a shot at an additional $3,000 in scholarships from other organizations. The two runners-up will receive scholarships of $500 and $250.
The contestants will be judged along the line of four differently weighted categories. The young women will get 40 percent of their scores from an interview with judges, which happens prior to Saturday night’s festivities.
In this, judges are looking to get “a good feel for the total person and their general knowledge for the festival and garlic,” Dalke said.
The remaining 60 percent of the young women’s scores – sourced evenly from the talent competition, speech and evening gown modeling, which includes a surprise, on-the-spot question – will come from their performance on stage.
The talent competition will feature four dances, a piano recital and a vocal performance this year, but there is nothing in particular judges are looking for.
“It’s whoever happens to stand out to the judges that particular evening,” Dalke said.
The speech – the subject of which is the choice of the contestant – tends to be about garlic and the festival. It has also become, in recent years, a chance for the young women to wax humorous about these subjects.
The final portion of the evening will have the young women modeling evening gowns and answering a surprise question. This is an important segment of the competition, Dalke said.
“You want to see how they are going to handle themselves in a nice dress,” she said.
Modeling the dress does not mean the young women are being objectified, said Dalke.
“They need to be able to walk into a room with many people – possibly television or radio executives – and be taken seriously,” she said. “If that poise does not show up in a evening gown, it’s not going to show up in a business suit.”
