Gastonia - Great Place. Great People. Great Promise.

The city of Gastonia lived up to its tagline today as they crowned 4 new queens. Gaston College's Myers Auditorium is always a "Great Place" for the pageant. Its the perfect size for a Miss NC preliminary and every seat in the house is great.

The afternoon's OT pageant featured 8 "Great People" competing for the titles of Miss Gastonia's Outstanding Teen and Miss Gaston County's Outstanding Teen. Since Mya Hipps, former Miss Gastonia's Outstanding Teen won the title of Miss North Carolina's Outstanding Teen back in Raleigh most of the days activities were handled beautifully by Miss Gaston County's OT, Tiffany Payne, who was also a Top 10 Finalist in Raleigh. However Mya's 1st Runner-up, Victoria VanDyke - Miss Mt. Holly's OT was there for crowning to lend Tiffany a hand in Mya's absence.

The winners of the 2009 Gastonia / Gaston County Outstanding Teen Pageant were
Miss Gastonia's OT - Logan Freeman
Miss Gaston Co's OT - Sarah Ashley

After a few hours break, the judges were back on the hotseat as they had to pick a new set of girls to represent Miss Gastonia and Miss Gaston County. The contest featured 13 girls and was loaded with lots of former title holders from some of the top NC pageant systems. Talent was like watching "So You Think You Can Dance". It featured 11 dancers out of the 13 contestants. When the smoke cleared a tapper and a modern dancer stood on top.

Miss Gastonia - Laura Page
Miss Gaston Co - Jessica Lackey

So you're wondering where the "Great Promise" is?? Well I only mentioned 4 beautiful and talented girls that all took home the crowns tonight. What I failed to mention was the many other 17 girls that also took part in today's pageants. Many of these girls showed "Great Promise" and I am sure we will see a few at the Miss Mecklenburg preliminary in January and a few other open pageants later this year. The other stat to notice on the Miss Gastonia Pageant website is that a lot of these girls are very young for the Miss NC system. That means they have plenty of time to keep working on their platforms, talent, public speaking, and get ready to come back and compete for the title of Miss Gastonia for years to come.