Competition Slim in Del Mar Pageant

The Greater Del Mar Pageant was postponed after only one contestant responded to a call for entrants, despite a recent move to replace swimsuits with sportswear to attract more participants.

The pageant, in its second year, also had trouble finding contestants last year, when two of seven participants dropped out.

“This is really a small-town pageant,” said K.C. Watkins, director of the pageant, which was postponed from Feb. 3 to Feb. 18. “It’s not expected to be real big. It’s a starting point for the girls and gives them experience if they want to go on to larger pageants.”

Watkins, 24, the reigning Miss La Jolla and a six-year pageant veteran, said she is now working with a small pool of contestants in Del Mar, the county’s smallest city, with a population of 5,200. Six more entries have been received since the pageant was rescheduled.

“Most of the people who are within the age limit of the pageant are students and are very transient,” she said. “It’s a wonderful little town, but it is a little town, and they go on to college and elsewhere and do other things.”

Contestants must be ages 17 to 23, single and have lived in the Del Mar area for six months.

This year, the traditional swimsuit segment was replaced with a sportswear counterpart in a vain effort to attract more entrants to the fledgling competition.

“I am against not having the swimsuit section, but I know that to get contestants we have to go without it,” Watkins said.

At least one contestant would not have entered the pageant if the swimsuit format had not been dropped.

“I would wear a swimsuit on the beach,” 21-year-old Shana Madden said. “But there I’m not alone or with six other girls, with a bunch of people looking at me. I don’t feel confident enough in myself to be parading on stage in a bathing suit.”

The Del Mar winner will go on to the countywide Fairest of the Fair Pageant on May 24 and 25 at the San Diego County Fair, where the sportswear segment has been in place since 1987. Representatives from 37 communities are expected to enter the 45-year-old pageant.

Swimsuit or sportswear, one of seven contestants will be crowned Miss Greater Del Mar Feb. 18 at the Inn L’Auberge.