You guys, I cannot BELIEVE it is Thursday already! Time is just FLYING by and it's not because of the time difference. Well, not entirely because of the time difference.
The show last night was a blast! It was way more high energy than Tuesday night and I really enjoyed it! If you follow my Tweets (and really, you should!), you will know that there are a LOT of dancers this year! I think there are more dancers than I have ever seen before, which is great. I wonder, though, if the contestants get super nervous becase dance fiend Mark Ballas is a judge? That would definitely make me nervous, but I just enjoy watching Mark Ballas judge. He gets really into the music and performances.
This morning I had the pleasure of attening a press conference featuring: the Quality of Life finalists, the winner of our fourpoints scholarship award, and a whole slew of former Miss Americas.
Miss Kentucky Ann-Blair Thornton won the Quality of Life Award and gave a very moving speech about her platform and the experience of losing a loved one to Alzheimer's.
I also got the chance to talk one-on-one with Miss Idaho Genevive Nutting, our fourpoints scholarship winner. She is such a lovely young lady and you can learn more about her in the next issue of fourpoints. Her mother also stopped to talk for a minute and was so nice, so excited. It's moments like that, that really make it all worth it!
What else? The former Miss America were awesome as always.
It looked like Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund had a very heavy left hand - I think she's engaged!
The Miss Americas also shared where they keep their crowns. Vonda Kay sleeps in hers and Dorothy Benham keeps hers in a butter cookie tin. I swear, you can't make this stuff up!
I don't know what you've been up to today, but this morning I hung out with Kris Jenner—no big deal!
Okay, actually, it was a really big deal! The judges press conference was this morning at 10 AM and I would have to say, it was the best judges press conference I have been to in the 6 (can you believe it?) years that I have been coming to Miss America.
What can I say? Apparently, Lara Spencer and Kris Jenner both wanted to be head judge but, of course, there can only be one. Lara seems like she is just fantastic and really takes the judging process seriously, which I appreciate so much. Other highlights of the press conference include:
*Raul De Molina doing high go-go kicks that Chris Powell taught him.
* Mike Fleiss' very progressive view of what Miss America should be.
* Teri Polo cracking jokes left and right!
I could go on and on about the press conference, but this year, we're going to do more than that. Check out the video below for the highlights of the press conference - I think you might be surprised at what the judges had tos say. I know I was!
{youtube} EYMF5bAdWDk {/youtube}