ABP Halloween Spooktacular

Today was a great day for Sheridan competing.
She was fortunate to compete with her friends Sam and Alyia and our friend Amy was there for support as well as Sam and her friends mom Jen.

This was a fun day. Started at 8 for registration, scheduled to start at 9, started about 9-915

First was Beauty, Gown, 2nd was Casual outfit modeling, after that talent and last was modeling halloween costume. then we had a lunch break and a nice party that consisted of "mummy" wrapping, limbo and eating a "pie" of pudding with whipped cream and finding five gummy worms, of course no hands could be used and if you found other candy, not a worm, you had to eat it. it was messy, icky and pretty gross, lol.

then was crowning, Sheridan did amazing. She won the highest title on the natural side, you could do natural or glitz... we did natural... she won Natural Ultimate Supreme, Overall Talent, Overall Naturally Fab runway model, overall Natural Cover Model, overall natural portfolio, 1st runner up composite and 1st runner up natural halloween model (although she tied for this one b/c she had a perfect score) - not sure how the tie was broken.

Overall a great day and lots of fun and close to home at the doubletree mundelein, we like that, next door.
Our friends competed too and Sam won Sr. grand supreme, natural and Alyia won Jr. Grand supreme Natural. they wre great!!

sheridan came home with a nice plaque and a cool spider trophy.

community service and volunteering and pageants

many people ask what is so great about pageants, all they are are beauty contests... well that is not true.

many of the pageant programs are mentoring programs, younger girls have older ones to look up to, and learn from.

in the Miss America/Miss IL system the girls in the Miss and Teen division require a platform and the preteens have a community service or platform.
Also with the Miss IL system one of the main community programs for which they fundraise is the Children's Miracle Network. All Miss contestants are required to fundraise for that program.

Sheridan's platform this year was fundraising for the food pantry. We like to go to the local church every third Saturday of the month and sort the food and hand it out. this is an outside program/pantry and no matter the weather we are out there. we also donate to the LIbertyville Township pantry as well as the Beth Am synogogue pantry where we participate yearly in the Stamp Out Hunger event in the fall. we sponsor queens to join us with NISP every year for that one.

The nice thing about the pageant systems, weather the Miss IL system or feeder pageant systems or the NISP, Northern Illinois Scholarship Program, or American Coed, NAM or many others, the girls all give back by donating time to community service events. The need to help out is engrained with these girls at a young age and they do it generously and give back often and have fun while helping others.

Sheridan has done a Lyme diseas walk, many cancer walks, whether walking around and having gathered/raised money, or volunteering handing out Gatorade for a marathon or handing out food at a pantry.

So therefore, another reason to be in pageants is to learn the community service part of volunteering.

Princesses are Almost Perfect Event with Miss IL and Preteen Miss Chicago

Today Sheridan was lucky enough to spend an hour with Miss IL Hannah Smith at an event hosted by the Glenview Public Library at the Book Mart located in The Glen, in Glenview, IL



A number of girls, about 20, 3-6 year olds signed up for this event through the library. Hannah, Miss IL and Sheridan, Miss Chicago Outstanding Preteen, each read a book to the little girls. Before reading the girls all got to decorate a crown to wear, a nice art project. After reading they could ask questions and both Hannah and Sheridan spoke to the girls.


Next they moved to a table for signature cards, gave autographs and took photos with the girls both before and after.

The girls were very cute, many dressed up in princess costumes or outfits, lots of pink.



Miss IL Hannah and Cara Kokenes, our Miss Chicago Director

Cara the Miss Chicago Director brought flyers about the program and Hannah made sure to speak about the program, the Miss Chicago event and about the princess program, hoping some girls would consider signing up for it in the future and looking for a great mentoring program.