Dear Otus,
As usual, we enjoyed the Miss Arkansas Pageant last weekend. The girls were lovely and talented and Ashton Campbell will represent us well. But we were wondering whatever happened to Bruce Rogers, the young man who competed in the pageant back in 2001.
Dear Vida,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and a further pleasure to catch everyone up with Bruce. I get a lot of email around pageant time asking about the fan favorite.
On Sept. 14, Bruce will be working the Miss America red carpet in Atlantic City, N.J., and commenting for E! alongside Fashion Police stars Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osborne and George Kotsiopoulos.
Fashion Police regular Joan Rivers is scheduled for blepharoplasty, brachioplasty, Hylaform injections, sclerotherapy, mentoplasty and polyalkylimide cosmetic procedures that day and will be absent.)
Ashton Campbell is just the most recent young lady to wear the rhinestone-studded Miss Arkansas tiara. Two of those (Donna Axum, 1964; Elizabeth Ward, 1982) went on to win the Miss America crown.
Four Misses Arkansas have been Miss America first runners up. Alyse Eady, KTHV's lovely cure for automatonophobia, was first runner-up in 2011 (she was robbed). Alyse had competed for Miss Arkansas 2010 as Miss Spirit of Hospitality of South Central Arkansas.
The Miss Arkansas Pageant has always been a showcase for the state's best and brightest young ladies, but that all changed in 2001 when a man competed for the crown for the first time. (There were two men this year, but they didn't make it past the first night's preliminaries.)
Twenty-year-old Bruce Rogers of Huntsville was among the hopefuls in 2001 as the reigning Miss Bella Vista Village. He was a student at Carroll County Community College majoring in interpretive dance and fashion design with a minor in arbuscular mycorrhiza research.
Bruce was not only the pageant's first male contestant, he was the pageant's first transmorphodite.
"I think the fact that one has the God-given talent to wear women's clothes and impersonate famous female entertainers ought not to be such a big deal in this day and age," he said.
It evidently was a big deal to the late Roscoe Birch, head judge for the Bella Vista pageant.
"That boy sure can belt out a show tune," Birch said. "For a few minutes there he had me convinced he was Liza Minnelli."
For his talent in the Miss Arkansas Pageant, Bruce sang a medley from Cabaret that included the title tune, "Mein Herr" and "Tomorrow Belongs to Me."
For his "Critical Issue" topic, Bruce eschewed such traditional platforms as volunteerism, child abuse and assorted disease awareness (all the good ones were taken), for something near to his heart -- "One America -- Transmorphodite Acceptance."
"I would be untrue to myself if I did not take this opportunity to educate America to the heartbreaking loneliness many transmorphodite Americans feel in this country even in the 21st century."
Some girls in the competition did not share the pageant's willingness to break the transmorphodite barrier. Heather Marie Tokely, Miss Buffalo River Bottoms, spoke for several others.
"Nothing personal against Bruce," she told The Associated Press, "but it isn't really fair. I mean, I've paid my dues having been in the Miss Arkansas Pageant the past four years as Miss Wapanocca Wildlife Refuge, Miss Heart of the Ozark Foothills, Miss St. Francis National Forest and Miss Oxbow Lakes of the Delta, and I haven't had to compete against a man. I think he'll get a lot of sympathy votes."
Shannon Britney Anders, Miss I-540 (recently re-designated Miss I-49), was more direct.
"Dang," she said, "I've seen Bruce in the Manale knockoff evening gown he made himself. He's stunning. He looks better than half the gals here. I wish I had legs like that!"
As it turned out, Bruce (now 33 and living in Santa Monica, Calif.) did win his evening gown competition, but did not make the Final 5. Jessie Ward (Bennett) was the 2001 winner and is now the executive director of the pageant.
Bruce did, however, parlay his instant fame into a career in the entertainment industry.
He was a guest judge on Project Runway in 2007, and served as runway coach and judge on Cycle 7 of America's Next Top Model (subbing for Miss J. Alexander).
Bruce was a petty officer murder victim in a 2011 episode of NCIS (nonspeaking role) and currently provides the voice of Gnarlie the Troll in the Disney Junior television series Sofia the First.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that Bella Vista Lake will be renamed Lake Bruce in his honor on July 12. Bruce will be at the Walgreens on Bella Vista Way from noon to 4 p.m. to sign autographs.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email:mstorey@arkansasonline.com