Chemically Dependent Coifs Thrust Into Beehive Battle

As the moment of truth approached Saturday at the Orange County Fair Beehive Hair Contest, Olive Stagg adjusted the two gray wigs stacked on her head and eyed the other 12 primping contestants.

Every one of them seemed too young even to remember beehives. “It’s unfair to grandmothers like me, all this cheesecake,” said Stagg, the only entrant using artificial hair. “Hey, it’s my hair. These wigs belong to me.”

But in the end, real hair--big cones of it coated with hair spray--got the nod from the judge, a salon stylist armed with a ruler to gauge hive width and height. The nostalgia contest, which drew several hundred spectators, was part of the 12-day fair’s theme, “How Sweet It Is,” a salute to the bee and honey industry.

Stagg’s 13-year-old granddaughter, Leah Gary of Trabuco Canyon, placed first in the hive height category. Her dark, waist-length hair was wound up a good foot above her head, with tiny beads of hair spray glistening in the sun. “We used about two cans of it,” Gary said.

First place in the hard-fought hive-width category went to Deanna Uston, 27, of Huntington Beach, whose hair was about the size of a bowling ball bag. After the stiff competition was over, Uston stood near the stage smoking a cigarette to calm her nerves.

“I have to make sure I keep it away from my hair because of all that spray,” Uston said. “And on the way over here, I had to lean the seat all the way back while I was driving, so I was trying to see over the wheel and everything. And then I actually forgot I had it, and it banged into the car roof when I was getting in. It was like a ball. It just bounced.”

Diane Dickerson, 24, of Costa Mesa won for best bee-theme category with her towering hive hairdo dotted with honey bees, combined with her black-and-yellow attire that included bee earrings. Dickerson, six months’ pregnant, also got points from the judge for the phrase across her shirt: “Mother to Bee.”

The contest host, comedian Robert Klein, said of the amount of grooming chemicals: “It felt like it was beginning to impair my judgment. And I wouldn’t be operating heavy machinery after being near those hairdos.”

The fair, which runs until July 28, drew 104,514 visitors in its first three days, including 45,949 Friday. Today’s events include performances by Richie Havens and Richard Elliot at 5 and 7 p.m. at the Arlington Theater. Also, the fair’s main event, entomologist Norm Gary, at 1 p.m. daily will entertain fair-goers with bee trivia--and by covering his body with more than 200,000 of the swarming insects while he stands in a glass chamber and plays a clarinet.