Southeast professor crowned Mrs. Missouri

Dr. Erin R. Fluegge-Woolf, a professor of management at Southeast Missouri State University, was crowned Mrs. Missouri on Saturday after competing for the title in Kansas City, Mo., joining one of more than a dozen who hold the title in Southeast Missouri.

One of Fluegge-Woolf's biggest passions is leadership; she has been involved in Leadership Cape Girardeau and Leadership Missouri and has

participated in leadership events. She was searching for similar opportunities when she came across the Mrs. Missouri America Pageant.

Having never competed in a pageant, she took some of her own advice she shares with her students and chose to try something new, pushing outside her comfort zone.

Fluegge-Woolf was named Mrs. Cape Girardeau after she worked through an application process and identified a local platform to support, the

VintageNOW Fashion Show. The annual fashion show benefits the Safe House for

Women in Cape Girardeau. Choosing that cause was easy for Fluegge-Woolf because it combines many of her passions, including education, business, creativity, leadership, fashion and empowering women.

She has modeled in the show for the last three years.

"Everything about VintageNOW, the cause behind it and what it is, it matches perfectly with my value system, and I just love that," Fluegge-Woolf said.

"Everybody who works at that show wants everybody else to look amazing and feel amazing ... and that was something I fell in absolute love with."

It's nice to know women in business can uplift each other instead of compete and create a cat fight, she said.

The main differences between the Mrs. Missouri America Pageant and similar state or nationwide pageants are contestants must be married, they must live in the state they represent, a platform to represent must be chosen and there is no talent competition, Fluegge-Woolf explained.

Fifty percent of contestants' scores came from their interviews with judges Friday night. The rest of their scores were made up from an evening gown competition and swimsuit competition Saturday.

Debbie Kirn of Cape Girardeau won the Mrs. Missouri title in 1986, and she and Fluegge-Woolf are two of more than a dozen women in Southeast Missouri who hold the Mrs. Missouri title from the three Mrs. Missouri pageant systems, which include Mrs. Missouri America and Mrs. Missouri United States.

Southeast Missouri outranks the state in the number of Mrs. Missouri titles won, Kirn said, with winners in counties that include Malden, Essex, Bernie, Cape Girardeau and Sikeston.

"I think Southeast Missouri women are just talented, and we have to do a lot," she said of the area's multiple winners. "We don't have the big city to lean on, and so we're kind of self-sufficient."

Kirn lived in Dexter, Mo., at the time of her crowning and was awarded a college scholarship. She placed in the top 15 in the Mrs. America pageant competing against models and actresses, attended countless speaking engagements and mingled with celebrities. Her platform focused on bringing culture and entertainment to nursing homes and grade schools.

Kirn said she competed for Mrs. Missouri to represent the married women in the state at a time when many were stay-at-home mothers.

"In the '80s, women were still struggling with being a wife and a mom and the house and all that because men weren't quite stepping up to the plate like they do now," she said. The pageant was able to show "we may have a 'Mrs.' in front of our name, but we are still beautiful and exciting and can compete. We have a lot to offer, not just cleaning house and wiping noses...."

Fluegge-Woolf now will proceed to the Mrs. America Pageant, and she will be able to promote multiple platforms with the Mrs. America organization, such as the National Association for Music Education.

"I have lots of things that I want to do," Fluegge-Woolf said before the competition, adding she is starting her own charitable organization that mixes business with fashion.

Kirn said even after a new Mrs. Missouri is crowned, previous winners hold their titles forever.

"You are a celebrity, and they treat you like one," she said.

ashedd@semissourian.com

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