This Sunday, the Miss Seal Beach Pageant will be held in the Performing Arts Center at Los Alamitos High School. It is an event; the significance of which, I believe should not be overlooked by anyone who loves Seal Beach. The pageant’s roots actually go back to 1917 when promoters of the town held a bathing beauty parade down by where the pier is today to help advertise the town they were trying to get started.
My own involvement with the pageant, and publicizing it in this newspaper, started in the late 1980s, when longtime Seal Beach resident Barbie Meyer was the pageant’s president. We became good friends. Barbie used to baby-sit my daughter Casey when she was a toddler at Under The Rainbow and later when she started McGaugh Elementary School. By the time Casey was eligible to be in the pageant we had moved to south Orange County.
Casey and Barbie did reunite briefly when Barbie asked her to be a judge for the pageant. Casey was getting her cosmetology license at the time and Barbie had been a Hollywood hairdresser. Casey is now in her last year of nursing school.
One thing I remember about Barbie is her saying that the Miss Seal Beach Pageant is not a “beauty pageant,” it is about the candidates reaching their potential. She was correct and it seems that way more than ever. Eventually, I came back to Seal Beach and the Sun. Barbie decided to retire from the pageant and the event passed into history … for a little while. I still remember the day a few years ago that Rosie Ritchie came to see me at the Sun. She told me she intended to bring back the Miss Seal Beach Pageant. I told her I was all for it, even though I was a little uncertain. She was soft-spoken and humble in her approach.
I considered what she proposed to be quite a challenge, even though she told me she was a former Miss Seal Beach. It was later that I learned that Rosie has also held the titles of Miss Long Beach, Miss Lakewood, Miss Palos Verde and Miss LA County. I also came to realize there is probably nothing she could not accomplish—and with a good sense of style and grace.
It is that sense of class that she brings to the Miss Seal Beach program, which seems to only get started after the pageant is held. There is a lot to be said for the commitment made by young women and girls who serve on the Miss Seal Beach Court. There are many public appearances at ribbon cuttings and other events, of course. There is also a lot more.
They serve at the Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce’s Thanksgiving Dinner, giving up some of their own holiday time. However, the one thing they do that I find so inspiring is their visits to other kids with cancer and their families through Ronald McDonald House. They do this not once a year, not twice, but on the first Sunday of the month, every month of the year. Therefore, in this program, the participants are being taught compassion.
I tend to think the kids who sign up to be in the pageant are brave just to do that, but to carry on the commitments of the program would seem to take extraordinary character. It follows that it takes the same type of person who creates and leads such a program; one that amounts to more than a fine finishing school. Meanwhile, there are all the other people who benefit from their efforts. That is why I was very pleased when the Seal Beach Lions Club recently made a $2,000 donation to the Miss Seal Beach Pageant, which happens to be a registered non-profit. The pageant alone hardly pays for itself. Running the other activities also have their costs, most of which, has come out of the pocket of the working single mom who directs the pageant and attends all the functions; overseeing the young women and girls on The Miss Seal Beach Court.
Donations may be sent to: MSB ID# 46-1924529. Address: 201 8th St., Seal Beach CA 90740.
I hope many in our Sun Region attend the pageant this Sunday and honor the courage of these young people. Admission is $20. The doors open at 3 p.m. with the pageant starting at 4 p.m. For those who can’t, we’ll do our best to bring you there through our coverage of the event in next week’s Sun. It should not be overlooked. It’s not just a pageant; it’s Seal Beach tradition.
Dennis Kaiser is the editor of the Sun Newspaper.
