Garner sends 2 misses to Miss America

If Wake County ranked towns for glamour, Garner would win hands down: Later this month, two Miss Garners will compete to become Miss America.

Amanda Watson, winner of the 2008 Miss Garner and Miss North Carolina contests, will be joined in Las Vegas by Kendria Perry, Miss Garner 2007, who has headed north. Perry is the reigning Miss Pennsylvania, where she moved to attend graduate school.

As far as the Garner pageant people can tell, it will be the first time that two contestants in the same Miss America pageant have won the same preliminary contest.

Watson welcomes the company.

"We've always come so close," she said, noting that North Carolina can claim numerous top-10 finishes but only one Miss America, Maria Fletcher of Asheville in 1962. "This year we're doubling our chances."

The road to the Miss America title begins with a win in a local pageant. Each year, the winner of the Miss Garner pageant competes with Miss Greater Sandhills, Miss Spivey's Corner and others for a chance to become Miss North Carolina, the state's sole representative on the national stage.

With a population of about 25,000, Garner lives in the shadow of neighboring Raleigh and might seem an odd launching pad for pageant queens. But like many local pageants, the Miss Garner contest is not limited to town residents; it is open to women from Wake, Johnston, Orange, Durham and Vance counties.

Both Watson and Perry are from Raleigh.

But no matter the hometown of the contestants, the Miss Garner pageant has a proud history. The contest is the longest continuously running pageant in the state, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2008.

In other communities, pageants come and go, depending on the dedication of local volunteers. It's different in Garner.

"The people of Garner embrace Miss Garner. They're proud of the program," said Harold Garner, executive director of the Miss Garner Scholarship Pageant. The fortuitously named Mr. Garner has been helping with the pageant for 40 years.

After she finishes her reign as Miss North Carolina, Watson, 21, will resume her music studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. Perry, 23, studied piano at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and moved to Pennsylvania to pursue a master's degree at Carnegie Mellon University.

Harold Garner will travel to Las Vegas with nearly 100 people from North Carolina to watch the pageant in person. He'll cheer for both women.

"What I want to see," he said, "is the winner and the first runner-up."

Can you imagine the parade?