Britta Thostrup and Melanie Cholka

Last night, I traveled to Oshkosh, WI with my co-pilot and friend of the show, Melanie Cholka, Beauties of America Wisconsin’s 40’s Melanie Cholka to see the Miss Wisconsin 2009 pageant.

To see our photos from before the event, check out our photo gallery.

The pageant itself was wonderful with at least 4 production numbers based upon the theme of “Xanadu.”  This was a very strong year for competition. We were wowwed (Is wowwed a word? Now it is.) with each portion of the competition. The ladies were beautiful in each phase of competition. Particularly strong this year was the Swimsuit competition which was one of the buzzes of the pageant. Every single one of the ladies were dynamite in this very challenging and competitive portion of the competition.

The musical breaks from Briana Lipor, Miss Wisconsin 2008, and a fabulous trio of trumpets rendition of “Bugler’s Holiday” were also wonderful. The entire show was FAST paced and the long farewells and slide shows of the past were excised from the program.

Susan Jackson and Melanie Cholka

One point of criticism: streaming the pageant. I learned once getting to Oshkosh that this year’s pageant was being streamed on the internet. Why am I learning this after I drive up? This is not to say I would have stayed home to watch it on the internet…I’m saying I didn’t know! I have so many web spiders out there, subscribe to all these e-mails that go out and they hadn’t promoted it enough that I could find it. In fact, I ran a search this morning to find “Miss Wisconsin streaming” and didn’t find it on the Miss Wisconsin website at all and only found it, get this, on the Miss Oshkosh website. It came via the Northwestern newspaper in Oshkosh…you can find the article here.  As of this morning, “highlights” are still available though I’m not sure I would call the clips that came up when I hit play “highlights.” Appeared sort of random, actually.

Here’s my point…if you are going to webstream the pageant: put a link on your website. Promote it…particularly with the internet community. I loved watching Miss Ohio last year which there would have been no way to see for me without the stream. No one was going to forgo attending the event to watch this low res representation of the pageant so don’t keep it a secret! End of rant.

Tim Kretschmann & Kristina Smaby (circa 2008)

Congratulations to Kristina Smaby, Miss Wisconsin 2009. Kristina is a wonderful young lady and you can see me with her at last year’s Miss Wisconsin afterparty.

I judged Kristina last year when we sent her to Miss Wisconsin for the third time as Miss Prairie Shores 2008. She is an incredible dancer and a great interviewer (Kristina–call us!) and we know she will be a great competitor this year in Las Vegas for the Miss America four pointed tiara.

Congratulations, Kristina and have a great year!