There she....isn't.

I'm not really into the beauty pageant thing. Seems to be all fake and superficial. But one of my very best friends was a Miss America contestant and hearing her story a few years ago about competing in the pageant changed my mind about a few things.

Then this year Miss Utah Jill Stevens, army medic, marathon runner, fellow SUU college graduate, and nurse seemed to represent a different kind of girl. So I decided to not only watch the pageant, but follow it on TLC's reality show Miss America: Reality Check. The entire show was about how they wanted to contestants to throw out the pageant hair, the robotic walk and represent the modern woman.

Last night the pageant finally aired and Miss Michigan Kirsten Haglund took home the crown.

So... they wanted to update the Miss America pageant....but the problem is that the judges still chose an old school contestant as the winner. Miss Michigan is a very beautiful girl and I'm sure she is very intelligent, but she grew up in the pageant system and seemed very stiff and old school on stage. Big hair, plastic smile.

Where is the change? How about looking closer at some of the other girls that don't fit the mold. Miss Alaska? Or Miss Vermont? Or what about Miss Utah? She didn't start doing pageants until a few years ago, and only then at the urging of friends and a desire to get the word out about her platform of emergency preparedness. She is a Miss America contestant who truly represents us: the real American woman.

I was really excited to see how this year's pageant would be different. It wasn't. All the "changes" made were merely cosmetic.

Until the Miss America pageant can make changes that will result in the crowning of a young woman who we relate to and can admire, the ratings will continue to drop to all-time lows.