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With less than two weeks before the state Cinderella pageant, only 19 contestants have registered. “It’s going to be a small pageant,” says an overwhelmed Elaine, holding her face in her hands. Tall and slim with honey blond hair that hangs just past her shoulders, Elaine competed in her first pageant at age 19 and more recently was crowned Mrs. Oregon in 1996.

She doesn’t act like a crusader for pageants; she’s much more diplomatic. It’s not worth the effort to argue about pageants with people who already have their minds made up. Elaine will talk about pageantry in general and Cinderella specifically with those interested but has found it increasingly difficult to attract new participants. Word of mouth and a website are the only advertising she’s been able to do. She tried placing announcements in local newspapers throughout the state, but they said they had policies against promoting child pageants.

A dozen years ago when her daughters were first competing, it was usual to have thirty girls in each age division at the preliminary county-level Cinderella pageants. Now, registered so far: two infants, two babies, five tots, five miniature misses, one miss, two teens and one woman.

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Mattea is one of the two teen candidates. Her competition is a sweet-faced 13-year-old who looks more like Mattea’s kid sister than a rival. She’s more than a head shorter and about four cup-sizes flatter. Mattea has never looked her age.

“I had to wear a size C in fourth grade, and I got my period when I was 9,” Mattea said. “I was short and fat. I topped out at 180 pounds.”

Sensitive about her weight, Mattea adopted a grunge, “sort of gansta” look in junior high, wearing a daily uniform of baggy sweat pants and tank tops. She shaved slits in her eyebrows and dyed her naturally auburn hair into bleach blond and Goth black stripes.

“But ever since I was little, I wanted to be pretty,” she said.

Mattea saw her chance to make a transition when she received a flyer in the mail from a different pageant program last summer. On the front she read, “It’s your time to shine!” And Mattea thought, “I want to shine …”

Her mom, Tootsie Hagglund, who owns a western clothing shop, was doing paper work at her desk when Mattea, then 13, showed her the brochure. The first thing that popped into Tootsie’s mind was an image of JonBenet Ramsey.

“I don’t think so,” Tootsie told her daughter. “We don’t know anything about those things.”

Mattea started reading the brochure aloud, “It says ‘No Make-up’?”

That detail surprised Tootsie. Mattea had recently discovered make-up and was in a stage of wearing way too much of it. “Let me see that,” Tootsie said. She read the rules. Judges would actually dock girls for wearing make-up. Her mom saw it as an opportunity for Mattea to boost her self-confidence without having to paint herself.

“Okay, check it out,” she said.

It was like entering a whole new world, a world that promoted etiquette, proper posture and public speaking skills. Mattea ended up winning her first crown last year in August, earning a trip to the national contest in Los Angeles. After having been home-schooled by a tutor for the previous eight months, Mattea started eighth grade fifty pounds lighter, with a new confidence, a royal title and a new role model, Marilyn Monroe, (minus the drugs and sex scandal, Mattea clarifies). Her shocked classmates took notice, and Mattea began to formulate a plan. If she could make that sort of a change in a few months, pageants could make her a famous actress and model in no time.

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For the Girard family, the Cinderella pageant has nothing to do with aspirations of fame. It’s more like being in an all-girls club, Elaine says, like the Girl Scouts, without the outdoorsy stuff and cookies sales. Through Cinderella, her daughters, who each won three titles, have made lasting friendships, learned how to perform without stage fright and become comfortable talking to adults in an interview format. They are exceedingly polite, well-dressed and well-spoken. They attribute it all to the safe, supportive environment of the Cinderella program. The Girards believe in the power of their pageant and want young girls to continue to have the opportunity to develop as their daughters have.

To make this happen, the Girards spent thousands of their own dollars to pay for trophies, sashes, crowns, printed programs, photo shoots and liability insurance. They paid to rent a space to hold the pageant, and they paid for the meals and accommodations for last year’s royalty.  At $470 per person – and sometimes only one entrant per category – the fee to compete may not even cover the $500 scholarship the winner receives, let alone the expenses to mount the event.

“What I’ve already spent, I can’t make up in revenue from contestants,” Elaine said. “My monetary outlook is that we will never make money, but that’s not why we do it.”

In an attempt to keep costs down, the Girards have made the pageant very do-it-yourself, which means much more work for them.  To have time to prepare for the pageant, Elaine took a week off from her job as a computer analyst. On the day before the event, the couple still had many projects to finish. Mike sat on the floor ironing Cinderella emblem appliqués onto pink t-shits, one for each contestant. Elaine was on the couch, with a laptop on her lap, printing out nametags and tickets.

Elaine cringed as she opened an email from a mother of two contestants.

“They’re not coming,” she told Mike.

“Not coming? Not at all?”

Elaine nodded, disappointed. 

“So that was a tot and a baby, wasn’t it?”

“Yep.” Elaine shrugged.

The next day another dropped out. That left 16 contestants.

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