Amber's fan club

ORAN, Mo. -- Friday night, the Seyer family's wait was finally over.

For weeks they'd been anticipating this night, when Amber Seyer would take the stage in the Miss USA pageant, representing Missouri among 51 contestants.

Her aunt, Cindy Seyer, opened up her home to all the visitors who wanted to root Amber on during the pageant -- all of them sure that their Amber would go deep in the pageant, if not win. The excitement was real, but nothing they hadn't experienced before when Amber competed in the Miss Teen USA pageant.

And like that pageant, Amber was not the one crowned. The title ultimately went to Rachel Renee Smith, Miss Tennessee.

Miss Missouri was eliminated when the field of contestants went from 10 to five -- an anticlimactic moment in a night full of excitement. But the news wasn't a total let-down. No tears were shed. Amber's family and friends were still proud.

A collective "What!?" could be heard when Tennessee, Kansas, Nevada, Rhode Island and California were announced as the top five, but negative talk ended there.

But some questioned Amber's low score in the evening gown competition.

"I think she did better than her score reflected," said Cindy Seyer said. But she wasn't bitter.

"She's worked really hard, and I know she was happy," she said. "She was happy no matter what."

Family and friends began to gather at the Seyer house early to watch Amber's appearance as one of 12 "strangers" on the NBC game show "Identity," which preceded the pageant.

Seeing their heroine on the game show only helped to build the excitement, as the friends and family screamed with glee every time Amber appeared on camera.

Several of those gathered wore black T-shirts with the words "Member of the Amber Seyer Fan Club" printed on them. Amber's face was everywhere, greeting visitors at the front door as they came in and taped on windows throughout the house. On the porch the message "Welcome to the Miss USA Pageant" was drawn in colored chalk.

Children and adults gathered to watch the pageant on TV sets placed throughout the house and in a shop outside, where about 40 people gathered to cheer Amber on.

The Seyers' pastor, the Rev. John Hearth of Guardian Angel Catholic Church, was also at the house. Earlier in the day, Amber had called and left Harth a message, which he then transferred to the school where all the faculty and staff could hear it.

Harth doubted if the family would call on him to help calm the anxiety, though.

"They're too pumped," Harth said.

The most animated of them was Audrey Seyer, another of Amber's aunts. About 20 minutes into the pageant the first cut was made that reduced to field of competitors to 15. Audrey's nerves were visible as she held her face in her hands, anxiously waiting for the pageant hosts to call the magic word, "Missouri."

Eight states went by before Missouri was called.

"You gotta be kidding," someone in the Seyers' living room said as another state was called.

Finally "Missouri" was called. Audrey jumped up and down, screaming with joy.

Audrey Seyer and husband Patrick were part of the contingent that went to California a few years earlier to see Amber compete in the Miss Teen USA pageant. This time they couldn't make the trip because Patrick couldn't leave his farm during spring planting season.

The first cut

After Amber made the first cut, Audrey was content for the night, even though she couldn't be in California.

"All I wanted was for her to make that first cut," she said as Patrick opened a bottle of champagne in celebration of that early milestone.

Andrew Jaimes, a neighbor, was less animated as he sat in the shop near the house, quietly watching the pageant. But Jaimes' calm demeanor hid his excitement for his neighbors.

Jaimes has had a long relationship with the Seyers. Amber's father is only a year older than he is.

"I've known her since grade school," Jaimes said.

Crystal Todt, Oran's high school secretary, couldn't contain her excitement when Amber was announced as one of the 10 finalists. Finding out didn't take as long as the initial 15. After Kansas and Hawaii, Missouri was called. Todt and the others in living room jumped up and down in excitement. She called watching the pageant "quite an adrenaline rush."

Todt acknowledges she's biased, but she said no one is more deserving than Amber, who friends and family call a grounded person who's always been defined by her kind nature. Todt calls her "beautiful inside and out."

Win or not, friends and family say that personality is something that won't change.

"She's the same person she was when she was 10 years old," Todt said. "She's good to everyone."

msanders@semissourian.com

Miss Missouri Amber Seyer, of Oran, Mo., appeared in a segment during the Miss USA pageant on Friday.

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