SHORT TAKES : Nude Photos Upset Contestants

Stacy Arthur, who posed nude for the January centerfold of Playboy magazine, says the photographs have caused problems with her fellow contestants in the Mrs. America Pageant.

“Some of the other girls are very upset about it. I have gotten a lot of flak,” Arthur said Monday.

“But the pageant system is not going to stop me from competing. They are going to let me compete. They say it would not hinder my odds (or) my chances of winning,” said Arthur, who was crowned Mrs. Ohio June 17.

Arthur, 22, and her husband, James, live in Sidney, about 30 miles north of Dayton, and run a ceramics shop there.