Dreams of being Miss Missouri Southern have been dashed after the cancellation of the beauty pageant by the Campus Activities Board.

CAB decided to cancel the event after students, who were initially interested in participating started to back out.

Terry Levy, junior criminal justice/pre-law major, said students backing out of participating in the pageant caused the cancellation.

“A lot of students showed interest but as time went on they decreased interest due to shyness,” Levy said.

He said the students who originally wanted to be in the show decided they would be better suited watching the pageant.

Julie Blackford, director of student activities, said Levy was working on making the pageant nationally recognized.

“Terry was working on getting the winner to move on to Miss Missouri or Miss America,” Blackford said.

This is not the first time the University would have had a beauty pageant.

Southern used to have a Miss Missouri Southern contest in the 1960s. Levy said the pageant idea will be brought up again to be held next year.

“With this first year we were getting our feet wet,” he said. “We were actually going to start doing that next year. Now that we canceled this one, we will start that next year, making our winner nationally recognized.”

Levy said the students did not seem to be disappointed in the cancellation because most students were shy about competing.

Blackford said Levy was frustrated after all the work he had put in, only for the competition to get canceled.

“He could stand back and look at it to see that maybe it’s best that we canceled it,” Blackford said. “I don’t think anyone else was upset. I was kind of disappointed, because I thought it would have been a really neat event for Southern.”

Although there was student interest, she said it was in the best interest of the students not hold the competition.

“I’d rather be disappointed now than put on an event that students didn’t appreciate or they didn’t like it,” Blackford said, “or not having anyone show up or not having enough participants and cancel it the week before.”

The pageant was originally scheduled to be held March 10, the week of Spring Break Blitz.

Blackford and Levy both said CAB will now focus more on the talent show for that week. She said the Board might move the talent show from March 8 to March 10, because it gives CAB two more days to promote it.