Lack of contestants cancels Miss ChocolateFest for 2017
By Ed Nadolski
Editor in Chief
After 32 years of adding a little bit of sweetness to its namesake festival, the Miss Burlington Area ChocolateFest pageant does not appear on the schedule of events in 2017.
This year’s pageant was officially cancelled on the last day in March after longtime director Sue Johnson was unable to drum up enough contestants for the annual pageant.
Festival President Bil Scherrer called the pageant a “big deal for Burlington and ChocolateFest” last winter when he issued a plea for contestants.
Both, Johnson and Scherrer, however, are confident the tradition will return in 2018.
The reason for the cancellation this year came down to numbers.
“Three times I had the number of candidates needed (four) and three times I had girls drop out,” Johnson said.
So, have pageants fallen out of favor with the younger generation or have schedules become so busy it leaves little time for events such as this?
Johnson said it’s likely a combination of those factors and the fact that she’s become further removed from the generation that provides the contestants.
“I wasn’t able to reach the girls as I have in the past,” Johnson said of this year’s recruitment process.
So, after being involved with the pageant for the past 32 years – 28 as director – Johnson has decided to step aside.
“You just know when it’s time,” she said.
Johnson said she believes pageants have evolved and still provide an effective platform for young women to showcase their talents and develop poise and presentation that will serve them their entire lives.
“I believe they are (still) very relevant,” she said. “Some young women today don’t realize what it can do for them – and you can’t beat the scholarship money.”
The Miss Burlington Area ChocolateFest pageant is part of the Miss America system and its winners compete annually in the Miss Wisconsin pageant.
Contestants are able to win scholarships along the way. The Miss Burlington Area ChocolateFest winner walked away with $500 in recent years.
Haylee Bande, of Waterford, who won last year’s pageant, will compete in the Miss Wisconsin event this summer. Next year, however, there will not be a representative from the ChocolateFest pageant.
Johnson said the local pageant produced several winners who went on to strong performances at the Miss Wisconsin level and then on to successful careers.
Perhaps the most famous is Caitlin Morrall Machol, who was first runner-up in the Miss Wisconsin pageant and later won the Miss Wisconsin USA title in 2007. She went on to a career in television, serving as a traffic reporter on a Milwaukee television station.
Johnson named several other local contestants who performed well in the state pageant and then forged careers as lawyers, physician’s assistants and pharmacists.
Johnson said she believes some of their success can be attributed to the things they learned on the pageant circuit. For that reason, she said, the pageant should continue beyond 2017.
“We’re going to work real hard to make sure there’s a pageant next year,” she said.
The first step in that process will be finding a director to succeed Johnson.
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