It’s All About the Scholarships

You can call it a competition, you can even call it a contest, but just don’t call it a pageant.

Arcadia’s Angela Kim, 18, who is competing in the 42nd annual America’s Junior Miss competition this weekend in Mobile, Ala., is aware of the negative rap such events get. The upcoming New Line Cinema mockumentary “Drop Dead Gorgeous” was inspired by writer Lona Williams’ experience with Junior Miss in 1985. (“It was shocking for me to see girls who actually thought about padding their bras!” she says.)

But Kim, a Harvard-bound student, says things have changed. “Beauty is not one of the categories we are judged on,” says Kim, a Polytechnic High grad.

Junior Miss, the oldest and largest scholarship program of its kind in the U.S., requires no entry fees and awarded $26 million in scholarships last year.

Kim says she’d sooner die than pad her bra. She would much rather talk about her political campaign to pass a $250-million school bond in Pasadena, her internship for Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) and her piano solo at the Sydney Opera House.

She will share these experiences and more at this weekend’s Junior Miss finals, which will be broadcast July 3 on TNN. Contestants will be judged on an interview, a creative performance (Kim will play the piano), scholastic achievement, presence and composure, and an aerobics routine.

Kim hopes the contest will bring new friends and a scholarship. “I have three older siblings. Any extra money would help.”