Contestants in The Miss Whiteaker Pageant: (From left to right) Renne Phillips, Meisha Linwood and the winner Jamie Burress (Sreang Hok/Oregon Daily Emerald)

Two girls wearing bikini tops pose and mug for the gathered “standing room only” crowd. Circling them with a make-up pen in hand is one of the contestants of the third annual Ms. Whiteaker Pageant at Sam Bond’s Garage. She draws faint lines on the flesh of the bikini girls. She scrawls a mustache here or a strange design there.@@?@@ Seductively gyrating back and forth, the girls almost move in time to the song “Kiss the Girl,” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” as they move in to kiss each other.
“I don’t know what I just saw, but I feel a little uncomfortable watching something on stage in public that I usually watch at home alone,” judge Jivan Valpey said.
Eight women vied for the coveted tiara with burlesque vaudeville strip teases, character dance routines, crass country-western alcohol-themed ballads and an art project complete with power tools and flying shards of glass that flew into the first few rows from the stage. That was just for the talent portion of the contest.
The criteria for competition in the lauded pageant are that you be between the ages of 21 and dead — and must live, work or own property in the Whiteaker district.
The top three spots @@?@@of the pageant would receive numerous gift certificates, with the winner getting a $500 purse to put toward the plan of the contestant’s own formulation for the betterment of the Whiteaker neighborhood.
Elliot Martinez is the MC and producer of the Ms. Whiteaker Pageant. Martinez is a man of many hats; creating and producing the Mr. Whiteaker pageant, he is also the editor of the zine BoozeWeek International and holds down a day job at the same time.
“There’s something very real, very dirty, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, about this pageant,” Martinez said. “These are real people with real jobs. Their friends are in the audience.”
Last year, Mayor Kitty Piercy was a member of the judges panel, and Martinez’s mom was in the audience. During the the talent portion, one of the contestants had a talent for sea chanties.
“She proceeded to tell one of the filthiest chanties I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” he said. “It was supposed to only go for three minutes, but it went for seven. The song was about a sailor digging up a whore because she was so much fun that he wanted another go. I could see Kitty’s face say, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ I was actually blushing.”
The pageant was kicked off by a “first impressions round,” where the contestants strut their stuff and introduce themselves in front of the audience and judges. Second came the talent round, where the liveliness of the Whiteaker’s artful soul comes into full view for the uninitiated. The last round is the “late-wear” and community action plan round, where contestants display their choice of appropriate Whiteaker evening attire.
Meisha Linwood is one of the contestants of Ms. Whiteaker. Attractive, tall, with a sharp nose and curly dark hair, she sat in the back patio area of Sam Bond’s Garage @@checked@@waiting for the competition to begin. She lounged on the picnic table under a grand awning directly behind the stage, cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.
“I live here,” Linwood said. “I’ve heard about the pageant for some years now. I like all the characters of The Whit, and that we can all live together. This is a great way to get involved in the community. I expect to have a lot of fun.”
At the end of a hard night of drinking, preening and performing, the women competing for the Ms. Whiteaker title line up on stage preparing themselves for the judges decision. Staring out at the crowd, the ladies look their best in whatever they’ve chosen for their evening wear, be it a gyoza mascot costume or a barrel with shoulder straps.
Though tongue in cheek, it’s clear from the faces of all the women competing that they have come here to win.
After a tough battle, the winner of the night was announced: Jamie Burress wowed the judges with her power tool inclusive talent and a proposed community art project.
With the $500, she will offer classes on how to make the glass art she specializes in, and then, all who attend these workshops will contribute to a massive glass art piece to be placed in the Whiteaker neighborhood.
The Whiteaker neighborhood is difficult to pin down for many not familiar with the area. A mixture of industrial use lots, breweries and residential areas, Whiteaker has its share of detractors and more than its share of advocates.
“When I first moved to Eugene,” Martinez said, “the only thing I really knew of The Whit was the corner of 6th and Blair; you know, if you needed to get hookers or heroin, it was the place to go. But then, I came to discover that there’s this whole magical kingdom back here. It’s a real close-knit community, and one that I felt compelled to be a part of.”
The Whit is the only neighborhood of Eugene with its own pirate flag — a skull surrounded by bones on three sides with a cutlass sinister beneath.
Renne Phillips works at Redoux Parlour and says she’s in the costume business. She also contended for the tiara.
“It’s a great place for artists and creative people,” Phillips said. “There’s definite magic here. Anything can happen. It often does.”