| Penny Hilton |
If there is one thing Misty Coolidge would change about the Mrs. America and USA pageants she competes in, it’s how they are perceived by the public.
“They are not about beauty!” she says, and you know that she’s said this many, many times. “Beauty” in the majority of American pageants these days has been replaced in concept by a more generous interpretation of being “fit,” plus poise and presence, sincere and articulate interviews, AND a demonstrable passion for community service. At the Worldwide USA pageant recently held in Omaha, Misty was crowned first runner-up and USA United Service Ambassador.
Yes, at the pageants they do have to dress the part all day, every day.
“There are no jeans and tank tops. There is nothing casual about pageants!” From their “arrival outfits,” to their “leaving outfits,” and for every moment when they are not sleeping over the next three days, they are “dressing to impress” in outfits appropriate to the event. After arrival, there is orientation, where they introduce themselves, give “an elevator pitch” about their service area, and give themed gifts to their fellow contestants. They change again for going out to dinner (several times), for interviews, for show rehearsal, for red-carpet receptions and limo rides, before the gown for the final evening where they put on a well-rehearsed show with the support of professional musicians, a show director, singers, hairstylists and make-up artists. They also have an unrehearsed interview with a judge, in front of the audience, and eventually someone is crowned “Mrs. America,” or “Mrs. USA,” or “Mrs. Worldwide.”
If you don’t enjoy dressing up, strutting your stuff, and being the center of attention, you won’t enjoy a pageant.
Misty loves it.
If you’ve met her – maybe shaking hands at the entrance to the fire station on election day when she ran for state representative, taking a break down at Nu Brewery, or popping into a local store – you know she doesn’t have a shy molecule in her body.
And she has always loved fashion and dressing up. You might have been to one of her fundraisers at her barn and seen her and friends she has met through pageants in their sequins, heels, and tiaras, and thought “Is this the same woman who runs the fleet of Maine Mixologist trucks, has restored and runs the Coolidge Farm wedding venue and the Wedding Chapel in Gray almost single-handedly? Who serves on the SAD 15 board of directors? Oh, and with husband Peter, has three pre-school-aged children?”
Yes, it is. And once you know why, it all makes sense.
The most important part of the contests that Misty enters is their emphasis on service. Pageant winners don’t get big prizes. What they do get is a platform from which to speak about their cause for a year. All the participants are there to talk about some social/charitable work about which they are passionate and in which they have been heavily engaged. A win gives them the ability to put their own causes in a public spotlight for a year.
Misty, whose active passion for years has been feeding the hungry, explains. “If I went to Omaha and called their huge food bank, Foodbank for the Heartland” (which is linked to the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Maine, Misty’s volunteering and fund-raising home for years), and said I’d like to volunteer for a day while I was in town, they’d say ‘Oh, okay, well, let’s see if there is a good time.’ But if I say ‘Hi, I’m Misty Coolidge and I am Mrs. Maine USA, here for the Mrs. America USA Pageant,’ they get excited right away.”
Which is what actually happened recently when she was in Omaha for the Worldwide USA pageant. “I arrived in my Mrs. Maine USA outfit, with my sash, wearing my crown, and there was this whole crowd gathered to receive me. They took lots of pictures [for newsletters and the media]. Then I said ‘But I’m here to work!’ and changed into work clothes, and I spent three hours re-packing Omaha Steaks meatballs.”
For the next year, with that sash and tiara and Service Ambassador title, Misty plans to travel to food banks all over the country, to put in a day of service and another opportunity for her to talk about the importance of feeding the hungry. September she’ll be in New York; October, Hollywood; November, Las Vegas; December, Savannah, GA.; and Arizona in May. So far. She’ll be paying her own way.
People who knew Misty when she was young may have guessed she was a girl to watch.
“I’ve always been an overachiever as long as I can remember,” she says. “The organized one, the kid with the meticulous bedroom. I never played with my dolls because I wanted them to stay in pristine condition. I was the one who helped my mom organize the cupboards, and I made my mom’s bed every day.”
Raised in Fairfield, Maine, by a single mom who worked several jobs to make ends meet, Misty also went shopping with food stamps, bought bread at the discount store, and knew not to ask for seconds at home. She was picked on for getting free lunches at school, and felt ashamed. She knew as early as elementary school that eventually she wanted to make money and be her own boss.
Misty graduated from Husson College with a BA in pre-law and a minor in English. Her first post-college job was five years with the law firm Preti Flaherty in Portland, as an intellectual property paralegal. Then she worked for 15 years at Dead River Co. as their real estate paralegal. She took side jobs catering and bartending at weddings, then started coordinating them, and then started Maine Mixologists. She bought the old church in Gray and turned it into the Coolidge Wedding Chapel.
And when Dead River downsized, she and Peter took a hard look at their options and decided that investing in the farm on Rt. 100 and turning it into a wedding and event venue would allow Misty to be a stay-at-home mom while her kids were pre-school. So they took out a home equity loan on her house in Portland, and the rest, in New Gloucester, is history.
But meanwhile in 2015 she was scouted by an America Pageant System representative, and invited to compete in the 2016 event. She understood it would give her a platform to speak about hunger– as well as additional motivation to lose the weight gained with her twins, and get into shape. She won second runner-up in a field of 18.
In 2017 she took the year off (from pageants) “for another baby” and spent time doing research into the whole scene. By 2018 a woman she had met at that first contest had become Maine director for the International Pageant system, and invited Misty to apply. She did, and took the Maine title, Mrs. Maine International, which made her eligible for the big contest in West Virginia. She was one of 75 contestants from all over the U.S. and the world (her roommate was from Japan), and though she did not place, she remembers it as “one of the best weeks of my life.”
“I met wonderful women from all over the world. We were pampered the whole time. And it was a big break from wiping baby bottoms and noses!”
Meeting “wonderful women” has been the unexpected benefit of these contests. Since she picks pageants that emphasize service, she already has that in common with the other contestants. The other thing they all have in common is drive…or maybe you’d call it heart.
“At pageants, I meet women like myself: I get them, and they get me right away… You know how people always ask me ‘How can you do all this? Where do you find the time and energy?’ At pageants I meet women who blow my socks off! Powerful women who own companies and are leaders and compete, and I ask them ’How do you DO it all?’ It’s so inspiring!”
In 2019 Misty went to an International Ms. system pageant in NYC and won a Runway Award for grace and poise. (“I love the runway!”) In 2020, the competition was all virtual, and once again she did not “place” but did win the community service award.
And that takes us to 2021, and her coming year as USA United Service Ambassador. Already there have been magazine articles and interviews, and another exciting thing in the works that she can’t share just yet.
Misty didn’t grow up doing pageants – she started only five years ago. But she is far from done. There are more and more pageants every year. And, she says, “I’m looking forward to going back and taking home the big title!”
