Who books it in short shorts? Miss Ogden!

The other day Union Station's library got a call from someone asking if the Osmonds had entertained at the Miss Ogden pageant in 1958 or thereabouts.

The caller's brother, apparently, was involved in one of the pageants, but you know how memories are. He was sure the pageant was in the Weber High School and pretty sure it featured the kids as a barbershop quartet. Could we confirm?

1959 contest entrants

The only way I could think to confirm that was to go to the microfilm files at the Weber County Library which, thankfully, are searchable on-line. I figured I could find a news story about the pageant which would mention, in passing, "entertainment was done by those cute Osmond kids everyone loves."

Couldn't find it. Some years the news stories listed the entertainment, some years they did not. When they did it was just the name of a group, such as "The Villagers," a quartet from the University of Utah which was on stage in 1962.

Interestingly, the Junior Chamber of Commerce made quite the hoo-ha of these pageants. Some years there was even a parade down Washington Boulevard, and they sold tickets to watch the competition. Local businesses donated prizes from their wares. The way these women are discussed -- "gals" and "young lovelies" are the sorts of terms you see a lot -- makes one cringe today, but that was life.

One thing that struck me was how the photographers sent to get a picture for the pageant handled what had to be an annual and rather tedious chore. Yeah, they're pretty girls, but you can't just shoot a pretty girl, she has to be doing something.

Doing what? Practicing to be in the pageant, which meant practicing to walk without looking like a dork, which meant, year after year, taking a picture of a girl balancing a book on her head.

Balance those books! From 1955.

I remember seeing advice that the way to practice posture was to walk with a book on your head, it made a good visual, so several years that's what the photographer went for. Same photographer? No clue. In the late 50s the Standard-Examiner contracted with a local photography studio to do its photography, so they shooters were trained to do a more commercial-type shot right off the bat.

Posed pictures like that were starting to be avoided when I hired on at the paper in 1978, but they were still a staple of the "Women's" Page (yes the paper still had one) which is where stuff like this ran.

Speaking of fashions, check out the shorts on those ladies. In 1958 the song "Flying Purple People Eater" came out and at one point the chorus talks about "we wear short-shorts," and this was it was referring to.