MISS MISSOURI HOPEFUL HAS HAD QUITE A JOURNEY TO REACH PAGEANT IN JUNE

It began six years ago with a short peach prom dress.

"I thought it was so cute and I wanted to wear it again," said Angela Scherer of Cape Girardeau. "I decided to compete in Miss Riverfest --- and I did horrible. The peach dress was totally inappropriate for a pageant."

But after two or three pageants, Scherer invested in a new dress and won her first title as Miss Harvest Festival of Qulin. Now, more than 40 titles later, Scherer will compete against 32 other preliminary pageant winners for Miss Missouri from June 4 through 7 at the Mexico Military Academy at Mexico.

"It has been a dream of mine to compete in the Miss Missouri pageant," she said. "When I was little, I loved watching pageants on television and dressing up."

Scherer, 22, a former Miss Bicentennial of Cape Girardeau, was crowned Miss Maryville on March 1 at Northwest Missouri State University, but not before she encountered quite an adventure.

Instead of driving seven hours to Maryville, Ryan Hagedorn, a pilot whom Scherer was dating at the time, flew Scherer to the pageant. The two ran into thunderstorms on the way and had to re-route. By the time they landed at the airport at 10 p.m., Scherer had missed rehearsal.

To make matters worse, the small airport was closed and the phone didn't work. They had to walk three miles to the nearest house to call a taxi before they reached their hotel at 2 a.m.

Scherer had an interview that morning at 11. After she tried for hours to call a taxi, a ride finally arrived at 10:45 a.m.

During the interview, she explained to the judges why "Come in from the rain," the song she was going to perform for the talent competition, had a whole new meaning for her, she said with a smile.

Scherer, the daughter of Gary and Bonnie Scherer of Cape Girardeau, is a 1992 graduate of Jackson High School and a 1997 graduate of Southeast Missouri State University. Scholarships from pageants have funded her degree in agriculture business.

The Miss Missouri title would give her more than $30,000 in scholarships, which she would use to study veterinary medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the fall.

Out of close to 400 applicants, Scherer was one of 64 students accepted into the veterinary medicine program. She credits the Miss Maryville pageant with giving her an edge on the rest of the candidates.

"Being in pageants gave me the interview experience that set me completely at ease when I went in for my interview for vet school," she said.

But Scherer will point out competing in pageants isn't all glitz, gowns and crowns.

It's hard to be involved in school, the community and pageants at the same time, she said. "You have to be well-organized and be willing to give up sleep."

She travels to Kansas City three to four times a month for voice and choreography lessons to prepare for the talent competition. She also practices singing one to two hours a day.

She exercises for up to two hours a day to prepare for the swimsuit competition, which displays physical fitness. When she is not working with her personal trainers, she is doing what she loves most, walking.

"But it pays off in the long run," Scherer said as she mentioned the benefits of competing in pageants.

Besides the scholarships and interview experience, she uses pageants to promote her platform, Habitat for Humanity, an organization designed to provided affordable housing.