Miss Milwaukee puts 5 pageant myths to Rest

You wouldn't expect beauty pageant veteran Janel Mayer to say bad things about beauty contests, obviously.

But Miss America pageants are different from the others, she says. Having been in pageants all her life, the 22-year-old brunet says Miss America pageants are mostly scholarship-based, that winners are chosen by "talent and interviews more than looks." It's the world's largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women, according to the Miss America Web site.

Mayer's family got a letter in the mail advertising a pageant when she was 9. ("I begged my mom to let me do it," she said). Since then, Mayer has joined about one pageant a year. (When she started competing in Miss America, she participated in three to five pageants a year.)
Mayer even received a community service scholarship from Marquette University, which she fulfilled mainly through her pageant work. In 2002, she competed as Miss St. Francis, and she was Miss Coulee Region in 2006.