New Miss Oregon was Miss Orange County 2011
Oregon homegrown talent wasn't strong enough to out-pageant a very recent California transplant, Rachel L. Berry, in the Miss Oregon scholarship competition, which wrapped up last night. Before being Miss Orange County last year, Berry was Miss City of Orange 2010. She apparently didn't step down from her Southern Cal pageant winner gig until this past December, and then it was wham-bam-Miss Oregon.
Born in Indiana, she attended college in Orange County and worked as a TV reporter and production assistant there and in Los Angeles well into 2011. There's not much evidence on line of her setting foot in Oregon until a few months ago, after two unsuccessful trips to the Miss California show. She was Tweeting from sunny Cali into December.
This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Given the crazies impassioned people out there in the pageant "family" whom we met the last time we got into this issue, maybe we should leave it at that. But we can't help noting that the rules say that an entrant must be a "legal resident of Oregon at least 6 months prior to local pageant competition." They go on to state:
RESIDENCY - resided in the local pageant franchise area for a minimum of six (6) months prior to entering a local preliminary pageant. Proof will be a Oregon driver's license, auto registration, current lease, student ID card or any other official document establishing residency.
As best we can tell, the Miss Willamette Valley competition, which Berry won, was held the weekend of April 21, 2012. Six months before that would be October 21, 2011. The new Miss Oregon wasn't living and working in southern California past that date, was she? Let's hope not.
Wonder where she voted in November. Where she paid resident taxes for 2011. Hey -- maybe Charlie Hales can help us figure this out.
UPDATE, 7/19, 1:02 p.m.: We did some digging, and the results of our investigation were posted here. A couple of hours later, it was announced that Berry was relinquishing her Miss Oregon crown over the residency question.
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Comments (28)
If we can't trust the wholesome sanctity of beauty pageants, what can we trust?
One bad sign about her residency: her talent in the Talent Competition was packing.
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 1, 2012 8:16 AM
What does an Oregon Beauty Pageant winner from California have in common with a talking urinal cake?
Bill, can you finish this?
Posted by gibby | July 1, 2012 8:20 AM
Sure I could finish it, Gibby. But I don't want to spend the rest of the weekend apologizing.
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 1, 2012 8:26 AM
Write the joke, Bill. I'll spend the weekend apologizing.
Posted by Anon | July 1, 2012 10:03 AM
The mobile society. Does residency matter? How about citizenship? Maybe we should just have an internet address and forget the rest.
Posted by Don | July 1, 2012 11:36 AM
Quite a scoop, Jack.
Maybe we can finally get a serious investigation of election law violations from our Secretary of State.
Posted by Mister Tee | July 1, 2012 11:47 AM
but but but...she looks SO happy and surprised in that photo.
Let's face it the beauty competition in CA is much! more than in poor ole' Or-ree-gon. 2nd or 3rd tier there, 1st in line here.
Someone cue Bert Parks...
Posted by portland native | July 1, 2012 12:12 PM
"But I don't want to spend the rest of the weekend apologizing".
That'll do for my Sunday chuckle.
Posted by gibby | July 1, 2012 12:22 PM
Rachel Berry for mayor. If Charlie can anyone can!
Posted by Steve | July 1, 2012 12:47 PM
Well, if she was looking for someplace to blatantly break the rules (or law), have it reported right on the front page, and yet still not face a single consequence, she definitely moved to the right state.
Posted by Snards | July 1, 2012 12:56 PM
Maybe she's been "occupying" a bank held home for the past few months to meet the residency ruless
Posted by NEPguy | July 1, 2012 1:32 PM
Now contrast the level of insights here with this comment on an Oregonian story today:
"meatroom, is it just me, or do you have your head up your a**?"
Followed by someone else saying, "It's just you."
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 1, 2012 3:40 PM
Face it - residency is only an issue for us slobs that work, pay taxes, etc.
Those who are too important for such little guy details can do what they want, when they want, where they want. Witness the swift political expediency to award an air tranpsort slot from DCA to PDX...but God forbid we can make sure people can safely and efficiently travel two miles from one's home in the Portland metro area to a good grocery store. Wyden's travel convenience is far more important than Joe Schmoe's ability to go to the bank. Hales' Streetcars are more important than one's bus on a Saturday afternoon. Miss Orange County, Oregon...maybe she can work as an actor on Leverage during the day; a parade performer at Disneyland at night. And probably have a "primary residence" in Vancouver so she can evade both sales and income tax.
Posted by Erik H. | July 1, 2012 7:45 PM
Rachel Berry? Isn't she a character on "Glee"?
Posted by Dutch | July 1, 2012 8:59 PM
Same name.
Posted by Jack Bog | July 1, 2012 9:19 PM
Kinda like the Prince of Wales. Residency really doesn't matter. What *should* matter is six months ago she couldn't find the Willamette Valley on a map, let alone pronounce it. Now she's the fairest of the state. What does that say about the homegrown talent?
Posted by Bean | July 1, 2012 10:41 PM
In a Tweet just a week or two ago, she confessed that she got lost driving to the Portland Airport and wound up "in Washington."
Posted by Jack Bog | July 1, 2012 11:39 PM
But that was great because she always wanted to see Our Nation's Capital.
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 1, 2012 11:53 PM
She even stopped to take a picture of the Red Lion Vancouver at the Quay because she thought it was the Pentagon.
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 2, 2012 12:01 AM
Turns out she lives in Aloha now.
Posted by Jack Bog | July 2, 2012 1:23 AM
"Berry was asked onstage if she thought that Oregon should legalize marijuana.........but personally was drug free, because she did not believe that putting a foreign substance into her body was a good thing".
Foreign substance? She has a lot to learn about Oregon
Posted by Gibby | July 2, 2012 6:24 AM
I regret my implication that Miss Orange County/Oregon is anything less than a genius. For all I know she has to wear a special tiara to keep her brain in check.
Maybe she was forced into the pageant business, after NASA ended the Shuttle program, and laid off some rocket scientists.
The point is I don't know.
It's just that we're less than a month since a contestant in the Miss USA pageant was asked for an example of a movie that depicts women in a positive and accurate light.
She picked the hooker in "Pretty Woman".
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 2, 2012 6:38 AM
"....because she did not believe that putting a foreign substance into her body was a good thing".
I volunteer to check her for breast implants.
Posted by Larry Legend | July 2, 2012 10:52 AM
Is that Aloha...like, Hawaii?
Posted by Erik H. | July 2, 2012 2:29 PM
I am certainly concerned.. please do some investigation on residency..this may well be a terrible moment in Oregon competitors for this title..
leaving others afraid to ever compete in Oregons titles....
Too many are questioning this decision to let her
compete.I find it concerning at even a possibility that oregon would let a non- citizen win this crown.
Posted by GINGER RAIA | July 3, 2012 2:57 PM
I know this young woman personally. I know she did not "blatantly break the rules". Oregon should be proud to have such a beautiful, talented, lovely, generous person representing their state! I feel we do live in fluid society and maybe state residency should not be the one kink in this young woman's plans to fulfill her dream. I can't believe there is some JACK-hole that has nothing better to do than troll Twitter to bust a pageant contestant! But more than that, I am appalled at the lack of humanity and kindness by the comments on this page. It's not OK to make fun of blacks or gays, but it's OK to completely de-humanize a pageant contestant and ASSume she is an idiot! You people need to put down your game controllers, step away from you cyber life and check yourselves. Horrible!!
Posted by Caren Nelson | July 21, 2012 3:13 PM
"What does an Oregon Beauty Pageant winner from California have in common with a talking urinal cake?
Bill, can you finish this?"
=======================
Sometimes the actual answer to a question is irrelevant. The "answer" is actually in the beauty of the question.
Thank you for sharing.
Posted by Allan H | July 22, 2012 9:24 AM
Ah, Caren. You epitomize so many of the wonderful people in the pageant "family." Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Posted by Jack Bog | July 23, 2012 7:41 AM