Miss Maryland

An Annapolis auctioneer will be donating two works by local artists tomorrow to the woman who will represent Maryland this dTC month in the Miss USA contest.Miss Maryland, Jennifer Wilhoit, will accept the artwork by Allen Board and Martin Barry at Robert H. Campbell and Associates, Auctioneers in Parole Plaza.The two artists specialize in Maryland landscapes and landmarks. Miss Wilhoit will donate the pieces to a charity auction sponsored by the Miss USA pageant."The main thing we want to do is make sure Miss Maryland gets a little more recognition before she goes to Texas," said Jack Muller, a partner at Annapolis Art and Frame.

Loretta Kowal has the clothes part of the Miss Maryland USA contest shopped to perfection: a fuchsia, custom-made bathing suit; an emerald-green cocktail dress; a long, red-sequined evening gown.The Severna Park resident has the long-legged, long-haired, good looks and the modeling experience likely to help her perform well in the November event.But the 22-year-old, who recently made it to the semifinals of the contest, is a little worried about what she'll do if she wins.If Kowal were to become the next Miss Maryland, she would be eligible for the Miss USA pageant, in which she would face yet another interview.

For Severna Park resident Heather Noelle Davis, the worst moment of the 1998 Miss Maryland pageant occurred when judges narrowed the pool of 22 contestants to five finalists. Four names were called, and Davis' wasn't among them."That was kind of nerve-racking," Davis, who competed as Miss Southern Maryland, said yesterday.But Davis, 23, was not only the fifth finalist, she went on to win the competition and $17,250 in scholarship money during the pageant Saturday night at Maryland Theatre in Hagerstown.

HAGERSTOWN -- The president of the board is hammering the edge of a temporary runway that juts out over the first few rows of the Maryland Theatre, preparing to swath it in a burgundy skirt and illuminate it with a string of white Christmas lights. The choreographer is rolling his eyes, belying the soothing "You will get this, you will get this" he is crooning, more to reassure himself than the 24 Misses splattered across the stage, some going right when he says left and others forgetting how to count to eight.

Four executive board members of the Miss Maryland pageant are retiring, decisions they made after an ugly controversy rocked the beauty contest last year and entangled them in a lawsuit alleging that the pageant was rigged.Among those leaving is Charles Skinner, executive director of Miss Maryland since 1977, who said yesterday that he "has run out of gas" and wants to pursue other interests. He denied that his retirement has anything to do with last year's controversy or the lawsuit, filed by an angry contestant.

Find your passion. Start today to make your goals a reality. Surround yourself with positive people. Those were the three pieces of advice offered yesterday by Marina Harrison, Miss Maryland USA 2005, who addressed hundreds of students at two assemblies celebrating Black History Month at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia - where nearly 36 percent of the 1,400- student population is black. "One thing I tell myself every day is, `I can be whatever I want to be someday - someday - but if I really want it - really, really want it - I gotta start today, today, today," said Harrison, who told the packed auditorium to follow along with her. Harrison, 24, a community outreach specialist for the State Department of Education, was the keynote speaker at the school's celebration that also featured students honoring notable black leaders, entertainers and writers, including authors Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes, Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, and actor Ossie Davis, who died this month.

Find your passion. Start today to make your goals a reality. Surround yourself with positive people. Those were the three pieces of advice offered yesterday by Marina Harrison, Miss Maryland USA 2005, who addressed hundreds of students at two assemblies celebrating Black History Month at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia - where nearly 36 percent of the 1,400- student population is black. "One thing I tell myself every day is, `I can be whatever I want to be someday - someday - but if I really want it - really, really want it - I gotta start today, today, today,' " said Harrison, who told the packed auditorium to follow along with her. Harrison, 24, a community outreach specialist for the State Department of Education, was the keynote speaker at the school's celebration that also featured students honoring notable black leaders, entertainers and writers, including authors Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes, Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, and actor Ossie Davis, who died this month.

Amanda Williams first thought about entering the Miss Maryland Teen USA pageant as a freshman in high school. Her mother, Melissa Williams, remembers looking at the stack of entry forms in the kitchen of the family's Jarrettsville home. "I talked her out of it, I don't know if I had these stereotypes or what," Melissa Williams said. The next year, Amanda presented the forms to her mother but saw a different outcome. "When she told me that she wanted to use it as a steppingstone for her career, we said, `Sure you can enter,'" her mother said.

Competition should always be free of petty ego, vanity, greed and bad manners.From "The Crowning Touch: Preparing for Beauty Pageant Competition" HAGERSTOWN -- Guards man the fifth-floor hospitality suite for the 22 contestants in the 1996 Miss Maryland Pageant. No parents, no press, no body is allowed in this sanctuary of the Venice Inn off Route 40. Pageant Week is special, and these women must not be bothered.They are hiding something."Put it this way," says Ed Dorsey, a pageant board member.

Forget the big-haired, "My dream is for world peace"-burbling beauty contestant of yesterday. Keri Schrader, 23, the newly anointed Miss Maryland, is among a new breed of women storming the pageant circuit. Consider the Rockville native's vital stats: She's a third-year law student at prestigious Georgetown University. She can perform an entire ballet dance en pointe (meaning on her tiptoes -- ouch!). And, yes, she'll probably wear a bikini in the Miss America pageant in September.Before she heads off to Atlantic City, we helped the former Miss College Park practice her interview skills:What was the first pageant you ever competed in?