Pageant Press and Pictures: Caldwell's Lemon Crowned Miss Maple City 2009

CLICK HERE for a complete photo gallery from the Norwalk Reflector; it's huge and not entirely in order, but good quality. If I get bored later, I might save and re-post some here in a more organized way.

Calswell's Lemon crowned Miss Maple City 2009

By Aaron Krause - Reflector Staff Writer
Monday February 9, 2009

Miss Maple City contestant Ashleigh Lemon sang "Wishing You were Somehow Here Again" from "The Phantom of the Opera" Saturday night. In the song, one of the characters longs for her father to be alive again.

Miss Maple City contestant Ashleigh Lemon sang "Wishing You were Somehow Here Again" from "The Phantom of the Opera" Saturday night. In the song, one of the characters longs for her father to be alive again...

... Lemon said she chose to sing it for two reasons: "Phantom of the Opera" is her favorite musical and in memory of her grandfather. Her real father left her family when Lemon was a few months old and her grandfather died in November of liver failure.

After Lemon's crowning, at least one person told her grandfather would have been proud. He would have seen her sporting a wide smile after her name was called as the new Miss Maple City. Then, her grandfather would have seen people of all ages come up to her, seek her autograph, congratulate her, hug her, kiss her and wish her well. The winner of Miss Maple City, one of the preliminaries to Miss Ohio, gets to compete in the state pageant for the right to become Miss America. Lemon's platform issue is "Conservation for the next generation: the race against time."

"I cannot wait to share my passion with others," said the young woman. Lemon said she's been passionate about the environment ever since she can remember. She added she was always an "outdoor person" who loved, for example, how the fall colors reflect against the water.

"Nature itself is just mind blowing," Lemon said. In the future, she wants to work to preserve endangered species. Lemon said she feels The Miss America Scholarship Pageant can be a good means to promote conservation.

Lemon, who had never been to Norwalk prior to Saturday, said she is happy to be crowned. "It's a goal I've put forward and I'm happy to meet that goal," she said.

... [Jacquelin] Jerlecki said she was very excited to be named first runner-up.

"Being a runner up is an honor," she said. "I think I gave it all that I had. I feel really good about it; no regrets." Jerlecki has competed in two other preliminaries, each time earning first-runner up. Is she itching to win a preliminary? "If it's meant to be it will be when the time comes," said Jerlecki, whose platform was "Expressing Yourself: Supporting Arts in Schools."

The evening also featured an appearance by Miss Maple City 2008 Heather Wells. "This year has gone by too quickly, I think," she said. "I've had such an amazing time."

The excerpts above are from this article.