From the Desk of Larry & Terry

The Words “Thank You” Do Not Seem Sufficient…
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Seemingly, there is so much work to insert into producing such an incredible national competition that the months of preparation flies by in an instant, and then once the national competition commences, it passes by even faster…. And this year was certainly no exception. We admit that we could not do this alone and without the support of many, there would be no Miss Gay America Pageant. This edition of the Excellence article is an effort to acknowledge many who helped to make this year such as success. In advance, if we inadvertently fail to mention your name, please know that it was not intentional.

To Miss Gay America 2015 Blair Williams, you were a pleasure to work with during the Miss Gay America 2016 Pageant Season and you shined brightly during the week’s competition. It may have taken you a minute to achieve your dream, but you reigned supreme and made us proud!
To the newly crowned Miss Gay America 2016 Asia O’Hara… thank you for coming home!  You showed the world that someone can capture the crown on the 1st trip to the national competition, but that it takes preparedness. We hope that you have an amazing reign and that you will be as proud of the Miss Gay America organization as the Miss Gay America organization will be of YOU!

To the formers who participated during the week, Tiffany Bonet’, Kerri Nichols, Catia Lee Love, Charity Case, Sabrina White, Nicole DuBois, Victoria DePaula, Coco Montrese, Coti Collins, Kirby Kolby, Sally Sparkles and Jessica Jade… your assistance through the week in whatever capacity was needed was a “God-send”… just knowing you were there and willing to help made us feel much better and we so appreciated working with each of your through the week.
To the Contestants… thank you for being so flexible with the things beyond our control such as staging at the onset of the competition and the lighting on Thursday night. Thank you for understanding that this is also “show business” and sometimes you have to roll with the punches which most of you did! Thank you for making the effort to be in attendance. We also thank those who qualified who were not able to attend as you clearly demonstrated that this was not the year for you to become Miss Gay America! To those who qualified but did not attend to compete, we hope you enjoy your “time off” and we hope to see you return on the national competition stage October 2018.

To the promoters of the Miss Gay America 2016 Pageant season, your support and hard work is what sets this team apart from the others… thank you for all that you do and for wanting to make a difference all the while keeping this brand to be something for which we all can be proud.

To the Judges of the Miss Gay America 2016 Pageant:

1. Lead Judge Jeff Capell-Miss Gay America 1996 Kerri Nichols
2. Russell Marcum-Miss Gay America 2001 Sabrina White
3. Martin Cooper-Miss Gay America 2010 Coco Montrese
4. Rick Martinez
5. Ted Brightwell a/k/a Viki Williams

Thank you for choosing wisely and for caring about this pageant system. Your passion for selecting the right person was obvious and we thank you for your dedication to THIS pageant system!
For many of us, the financial responsibility of participating in this pageant system is enormous and we are so appreciate to the sponsors:

1. Burke-Kinnear Photography, thank you for your talents to capture the coronation moment and post coronation for Miss Gay America 2016 Asia O’Hara and her court
2. Central Printing of Memphis, Tennessee, thank you for sponsorship in part for the printing of the Miss Gay America 2016 Souvenir Programs
3. Fierce Jewelers, thank you for your sponsorship of the Miss Gay America 2016 crown, tiara, scepter, lapel pin and earrings/necklace set as well as other incredible jewelry pieces that you will provide to Miss Gay America 2016 Asia O’Hara throughout the year. We also appreciate your willingness to become the official jeweler of the Miss Gay America 2016 Pageant and the Miss Gay America 2017 Pageant season. Your professionalism, attention to detail and quality is refreshing and we look forward to proudly referring to you are a partner of this organization.
4. Fireworks Cosmetics-thank you for the contestant gift back of your products as they were very much appreciated. We hope that this sponsorship will increase the awareness of your organization and was profitable for you.
5. DJ Diva Remixes-thank you for the awesome mixes of preliminary night evening gown music, overture to the final night competition, opening number to the final night mixes and final night evening gown music. You are very talented and we appreciate you choosing the Miss Gay America organization for which you can display such talents!
6. Hicks Convention Services of Memphis, Tennessee-thank you for sponsorship in part of the various lighting and stage décor.
7. P.J. Newton, Paulette Harness, The Miss Gay Tennessee America pageant and the Miss Gay Mid America Pageant-thank you for your back stage assistance and all you did to ensure this year’s national competition was as seamless as possible.
8. Dragstudy.com/Oklahoma State University Drag Study and Mr. Douglas Knutson, thank you for your interest in the study of drag and we trust that you have received many participants to your study.
9. Sheer Illusions, LLC and Mr. Austin Payne, thank you for your sponsorship in part of the preliminary night category awards and the Symbol of Excellence statues presented to overall category awards. Your dedication to this pageant is amazing and we so appreciate great promoters such as you!
10. Robert York and The Miss Gay D.C. America pageant-thank you for once again sponsoring the lovely sash and the promoters scepter… your dedication to this pageant system is an awesome thing to witness and we are fortunate to celebrate with you, an amazing 10 years!
11. To Team Weaver (Terri Weaver, Jessica Weaver, Harold Weaver), Tom Knecht and Aubrey Penney your dedication to the spotlights all week was a tremendous contribution to the success of the contest, all the while helping those on stage to look their best. For that we are forever grateful!

To Made For A Queen Jewelry, you are a staple to the Miss Gay America organization in that without your presence, things would not seem to be the same and we thank you for your consistency of being vendor year after year!

To the office staff, there are no words that can express the great feeling of reliability in knowing that you are all working in the best interest of the pageant system….. to Bruce Lamensdorf, Coby Myers, Michael Sharpe a/k/a Miss Gay America 2013 Sally Sparkles and Brett Harris- the very stressful week of pageantry would have been much more stressful without your efforts and we will always have such high gratitude for all of your efforts in making the week flow smoothly but also fun…

To the titleholders who cared enough to make an appearance to walk during the titleholders walk:

• Jade Porchet-Miss America National Star
• Keisha Kye-Miss Vintage American National Star
• Kaden Cassadine-Mr. American National Star
• Freak Nasty-Miss Femme American National Star
• Will Ryder-Mister America National Star
• Markus Von Lennox-Mr. United States
• Brandonna Laniece-Miss United States
• Shae Shae LaReese-Miss Addicted to Glamour
• Jeffrey Kelly-Mr. U S of A
• Mykul Valentine- Mr. Continental
• Tiffany T. Hunter-Miss Continental
• Chantel Reshae-Miss Continental Elite

And to the above mentioned tiitleholders, we were equally honored for you to grace our stage with your presence! May each of you enjoy the remainder of your reign!
We congratulate the Top 10 finalist of the Miss Gay America 2016 Pageant:
                Asia O’Hara-                       Miss Gay Texas America
                Kelly Ray-                            Miss Gay South East America
                Dextaci-                               Miss Gay Gulf States America
                Truly Fabu-                         Miss Gay North East America
               Navaeh McKenzie-           Miss Gay Arizona America
                Deva Station-                     Miss Gay D.C. America
               Bella DuBalle-                     Miss Gay Tennessee America
                Barbra Seville-                   Miss Gay Western States America
               Dessie Love Blake-           Miss Gay Southern States America 1st Alternate
               Lindsay Starr-                      Miss Gay North Carolina America 1st Alternate
And to the Top 10, we thank you for bringing your “A” game… aside from this being a competition, to the audience it is also a show and we thank you for making such a spectacular show.  Also to those so close to the Top 10 spot (including Patti Lovelace, Best Overall Contestant Not In The Top 10 and Sasha Leigh Chambers, thank you for making it such an accomplishment to be in the Top 10 as you both were very close to a Top 10 spot and you certainly were worthy of being in the Top 10…). The sad part of this contest is that there were so many that created such a great show but there are only 10 spots available for final night competition. Just as the winning spot, there were several others that we know would be great Miss Gay America titleholders but unfortunately, there can only be one winner.  The contestants were spectacular at the national competition and any of the Top 15 placements would have not been surprising to anyone, to actually be in the Top 10. Again, we appreciate all contestants for their dedication in making the national competition so entertaining!

To Marketing Director Chuck Guthrie, thank you for all you do to make the Miss Gay America organization shine brightly through social media.  Thank you for taking great amounts of time to show the world through social media, the event of the week! Your efforts have bolstered our likes to 10,000+ and we appreciate the quality job you do for marketing this brand. We very much appreciate your efforts on the table centerpieces, the floral pieces of the Miss Gay America 2016 pageant and the overture music for preliminary night competition. Your assistance has been tireless and we appreciate you!

To Brett Harris, thank you for being such an integral part of the team! Each and every diverse job you did was such a help and we so appreciated working with you during the week!

To Brian Menegay, Vivi Vellure, P.J. Newton, Jesse Sheard and Brock Bradley, there are no words that can thank you enough for your heart that you inserted into making this years pageant a great success… tho we could never thank you enough, please know that you are part of this team and we could not have made it through the week without you!

To Joey Dotson and Paulette Harness, you handled the admission and will-call counter effortlessly and worked like a well oiled machine. Thank you for being so reliable and trustworthy! Your dedication to this system is greatly appreciated and we are forever grateful to you both!

To Daniel Eckstrom, thank you for all you do through the year to keep the www.missgayamerica.com website operating smoothly. While we know that you enjoy doing the website work, we are so thankful to have such a great person that genuinely cares about the system and wanting to keep a great impression/image via the website. You are appreciated more than you could ever know!

To Aron Harvey a/k/a Miss Gay America 2000 Catia Lee Love, without you, the week would not be nearly as smooth and we appreciate your keeping the masses calm and running efficiently. We could never pull off the national competition without you!

So here we are, nearly 3 weeks after the competition has concluded and yes, we are still tired but his national office has hit yet another cycle in the year… The task at hand now is to ready Miss Gay America 2016 Asia O’Hara to be everything he can be and more as he makes his mark on the legacy of Miss Gay America. As the world begins to sleep during the holiday season, we will be busy working with Asia administratively as well as attempting to regroup from the national competition in effort to seek improvement opportunity for next year. Granted with all of the unexpected issues that we experienced during the week of competition including staging issues, sound system amp crash and lighting issues, we somehow managed to survive! We thank all who participated in this “show business” venture to make the show happen… while nowhere near perfection, we, with the help of many, many people pulled off a great feat which was to produce the Miss Gay America 2016 pageant which was more than just a pageant…. The most consistent thing with show-business is that “the show must go on…” and we thank you, the contestants and former Miss Gay America titleholders for maintaining your professionalism as we adapted to things that were beyond our control. It was a show to the audience but it was also a continuation of a legacy and tradition that means so much for so many people including this national office, so we very much appreciate those who were capable of adapting to certain issues. This national office did the very best we could to accommodate all involved all the while ensuring that the national competition went on without delay. So in closing, while we know that we will not always be pleasing to everyone, we try our very best to remove personalities involved and make EVERY decision to be in the best interest of the Miss Gay America organization. Again, while some of the naysayers may speak so bitterly and boldly about the issues that sometimes just occurs in show business, those who speak negatively do not know all of the details nor never will have all of the true details. Rather than speaking negatively in return to those who make feeble effort to hide behind their “power” of their keyboard, we choose to take the higher and classier road and hold our head high in that we know that we did and continue to do the very best we can with the resources we have in our possession to manage this extremely challenging task of operations within the national contest. While coming off of an extremely difficult year in many areas, we have managed to hold it all together and remove some of the obstacles that prevent/hinder us from keeping things on track. To the world who does not understand the internal side of the operations, we would never intentionally expose ourselves or the Miss Gay America organization to any greater than normal risk so we continue to operate the national contest in the best manner we can, regardless of whether or not we win the “popular vote”. This year just as last, we will continue to remove personalities and make every decision to be in the best interest of the pageant system… those who agree with our decisions, we thank you for your support. By choice, we will divert our focus on the positive of this pageant system, which is many things including a dynamic legacy, a spectacular support system of promoters, a “second to none” crop of Miss Gay America hopefuls and a very beautiful, talented and classy individual who will service as our national Symbol of Excellence for the next 12 months.

We hope that each of you have a spectacular holiday season!

With our appreciation, until next time!

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