Alum, students win honors in Miss Philadelphia Pageant

For 2007 College alumna Sophia Termini, the Miss Philadelphia Pageant last week was a great way to help pay for med school, but she will never repeat it.

Termini, along with College junior Samantha Greene and College seniors Cara Bumgardner and Geneva Campbell, competed and won prizes in last week's pageant. While all four saw the competition as a means to an end, the end was different for each.

Termini and Greene won second and fourth runner-up, respectively, while Campbell won "Non-Finalist Interview" and Bumgardner was honored as "Miss Congeniality."

While Termini and Campbell viewed the pageant as an interesting experiment, Bumgardner and Greene have each participated in at least two pageants in the past.

Termini described the event as a "scholarship organization that culminates in a beauty pageant," and said she became involved with the program for its scholarship opportunities.

The competition is geared primarily toward scholarship, community service and providing all contestants opportunities for personal, professional and scholastic growth.

It is among the largest scholarship providers of the local pageants in the Miss America Organization, the largest scholarship provider for young women in the world.

Besides the many opportunities to win scholarship money, winning the competition is also an effective way to inform people about a platform, which is an important aspect to many of the women who participate, Bumgardner said.

"We say the crown is a bejewelled megaphone," she said. "If you have a passion for something, . it is a great way to make people listen because you become a public figure."

Bumgardner added that many of the platforms are geared toward children or education in some way.

Many past Miss Philadelphias have benefited their cities in ways not strictly confined to their platforms, Campbell said.

For example, 2005 Engineering alumna and Miss Philadelphia 2005 Ronica Licciardello has spoken to high-school and college students across the country about the importance of planning for college and a career. However, her platform as Miss Philadelphia was encouraging youth to perform community service.

Greene added that winning the pageant is comparable to embarking on a career, in that the winner generally becomes very involved with the city's affairs and in trying to better it in some way.

A lot of people don't realize the number of changes that have taken place to make Miss America more than simply a beauty pageant, Bumgardner said.

Miss USA - a similar pageant - is "basically just bodies," she said, but Miss America-affiliated events are much more prestigious and devoted to worthwhile causes.

"There's a lot worse things that we could be doing to try to earn money than to do something positive and possibly earn scholarship money," Campbell said.

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