Student hopes to wins Miss Pa.

Kieran Snyder is betting she has all the right stuff -- poise, personality and beauty of face and figure. Snyder, a College freshman from Ringwood, N.J., will compete in the finals of the Miss Pennsylvania USA pageant in Monroeville this March. The winner of this round will be entered in the Miss USA pageant competition a year later. Snyder said she has never been in a pageant before or modelled professionally, but decided to send the pageant's promoters her picture and a biography on a whim after seeing the application in a brochure. "I just totally did it on a lark," Snyder said. "They wine and dine you for three days," Snyder said. "It looked like it would be a lot of fun." If Snyder wins the competition, she will be awarded $1,000 in scholarship money, a $1,000 wardrobe allowance, in addition to a place in the national Miss USA pageant, according to Randy Sanders, the pageant's marketing and production director. Sanders also said she would also win a set of luggage and Hawaiian Tropics suntan products. The pageant directors declined to comment on how many women have been accepted to the finals, but said last year 92 women entered of 250 applicants. But Snyder needs to find a sponsor for $795 before the pageant. And she said she has not started looking yet. Sanders said that sponsorship money will go to the production of the pageant including housing expenditures, meals and to help "prepare" the winner for the Miss USA Pageant. The contestants will be judged on "poise, personality and beauty of face and figure." Poise will be judged in a evening gown competition, beauty in a swimsuit competition and personality in separate interviews with five to seven judges. According to Sanders, the contestants attend approximately three minute interviews with each judge. All of the categories are equal in weight. "[The competition is looking for] a well-rounded person who can represent the woman of the '90s," Sanders said. "The judges will choose thir favorite 15 girls in each of the three categories." A numerical system will only be used to judge the five finalists. Nora Madilla, the pageant's administrative director said Miss Pennsylvania USA seeks women who are "attractive, interesting and doing something rather than watching soap operas." Snyder said she intends to be a linguistics major and writes for two campus literary magazines. She is also a member of the Penn Irish Club. "I don't think my self-esteem so hinges on how someone will judge me that it will wreck me," she said. "You should look nice and take pride in yourself for yourself and not for judges."