My parents initiated a truce the year I won a beauty-queen title. Actually, I was promoted to queen, but to my mother, how I received the title was of no consequence. In effect, I moved from a dysfunctional middle-class family into a theatrical ménage of high performers, intent on managing all aspects of my life for one year. Along with me, my parents were elevated into the glitzy world of GuyRex, the brainstorm of El Pasoans Richard Guy and Rex Holt. Fondly called “the boys” by those in their widening circle of distinctive friends in 1971, they were inordinately creative and flamboyant. This aspect initially caused my father to dig in his heels even as my mother relinquished my custodianship to the Miss El Paso-Miss America franchise. One would expect this to be a no-win-win for me, though my year was thrilling and certainly eye-opening for an over-protected teenager.
The world I entered was pure allure. It fringed on El Paso’s underbelly where a top stratum of the moneyed and theatrical artists melded with the city’s wilder, but popular element. Bank presidents, country-club auxiliary members, military officers, and actors, along with drug kingpins, high rollers, Hollywood detectives, bail-bondsmen, and defense attorneys, shared a mutual passion for the Las Vegas pizzazz that GuyRex brought the Sun City. Like the shifting desert sands that squeezed the city between the Rio Grande and the Rocky Mountains, El Paso thirsted for such refreshment, welcoming novel and creative ideas that could help exalt the Wild West city to a cosmopolitan destination.
Guy and Rex understood that their success was about showmanship and illusion. There were no nuances. They created pageants like theatrical shows— wildly imaginative, lively musical, and colorfully garbed—with a multitude of post-production acts so that everyone could share a piece of the new queen as her year progressed at events in their own neighborhoods. Not surprisingly, almost everyone invested in the excitement of a new Miss El Paso beauty queen and city-ambassador, from the Chihuahuan governor in Juárez, Mexico, to downtown El Paso city officials; from poor residents in El Paso’s southern barrios to the affluent in El Paso’s upper valley to the west; from soldiers at Fort Bliss Army Base to corporate presidents on Montana Street. And GuyRex did, indeed, deliver. They molded and marketed a beauty contestant in a way that Miss America and Miss USA pageant officials had never foreseen, making the city’s mantra—“El Paso, You’re Looking Good!”—come true.
The premiere GuyRex-Miss El Paso pageant of 1971 was just the beginning for the boys. GuyRex would go on to own the Miss Texas and Miss California USA pageants, and the term GuyRex Girl would be trademarked. From 1985 through 1989, five GuyRex Girls, all Miss Texas title-holders, went on to win Miss USA. Called the Texas Aces (four aces and a wildcard), these women became semi-finalists or runners-up to Miss Universe, catapulting Richard Guy and Rex Holt into beauty-pageant fame. Every one of GuyRex’s girls journeyed a singular experience compared to other traditional beauty contestants. Already gorgeous, the women were re-chiseled, sculpted and refined until a distinctive GuyRex-look emerged.
I know. I was a first generation GuyRex Girl—Version 1.0—an experiment as unique and bold as the new queen-makers themselves. And like all first versions in experimentation, I was flawed, as were my creators. Only in retrospect many years later, do I sense that, like beauty, my year with GuyRex was just skin-deep in my personal growth, and though pivotal, not the watershed of my life. But if I pick at the year’s scab until it hurts, I finally understand how I came to be who I am today.
Excellent tease my friend! The “old El Pasoans” will eat this up!
I hope so!
Ok, you got me hooked Jane!
Lola, thank you so much!!!
Alright…I’m sixty years old; I live in the mountains in western Montana; I drive an old pickup truck; I own guns; I write Westerns for cyryin’-out-loud! If someone would have told me that I could read the first few chapters of a book titled “The Pink Dress” and be hooked, I would have called them crazy. But, actually, as a writer myself, I know that good writing is good writing…no matter what the genre or subject matter. Good job, Jane!
You made my day! Actually, you might like some of the stories within the story, even if you are a 60-year-old, pick-up-drivin’ gun-owner. The book actually will be western-tinged because the setting, El Paso, still had a Wild West attitude. Gun runners, drug smugglers, 20th-century outlaws of all stripes and runaways congregated in El Paso. These were some of my supporters, along with Mexican officials and Hollywood-types. Makes for an interesting background despite the symbolic pink dress. Thank you, Michael, for taking the time to read what will become the preface of the new book.
Michael – don’t know why I originally said Matt. You may be sixty, but I am sixty-seven! My only pitiful excuse.
Lol…no worries. Matt is one of the main characters in my upcoming book, so I read right over it and didn’t even notice.
How do I get this book. I too was a Guy Rex Mrs In 1989
Sandi, do you mind my asking what pageant you are referring to in 1989? Thanks! And, thank you for your comment 🙂
Oh, Janie! I cannot wait to read the finished product! Being a beauty pageant winner myself, I can’t wait to learn more of your experiences. I love the way you drew me in. Thank you for h\sharing.
Is the book a available?
Laurie, thank you for inquiring! The manuscript is still being written, almost finished. I estimate this book will be released late 2022 after going through the editing and publishing processes. You can follow me on Facebook or keep checking back here for updates. Thank you for your interest! JLB
Sorry. I did not proofread. I was excited to comment: “Thank you for sharing.”
No worries. I am glad the book interests you! We’ll compare notes as soon as it is put together!
Janie, I am anxious to read your book. I stumbled on this…not knowing you are a writer. I was a sorority sister of yours, way back in the day.
My goodness, Jody! This was a surprise. Also coincidental that the initial setting of The Pink Dress is in our sorority house, and I do mention a few of the girls-Maddie, Gayle, Shirley, etc. I will be anxious to see what you think about this book, still about two years out from being on the shelves. I am halfway through the writing now. It is very different from other books I have written and has been painful at times to write. I hope you will stay in touch. Janie
Hey Jody, recognized Jane’s name. That’s 3 of us so far completing the triangle.
Hi Janie!
I too was a Guy/Rex gal & placed in the top 15 at Miss Texas 1985. What a crazy season. I didn’t want to see some of what was obvious, but for the most part, the pageant years were a positive experience. I might have come away from it a bit worse for wear, though, had I actually been crowned Miss Texas for a year.
Your book sounds amazing & you seem to have a flare for self-effacing honesty in your writing style. Bravo. I too am a writer, five books to #1 in a few Amazon categories & another on the way.
Cheering you on as you continue the journey to conclude what sounds like an incredible story.
Blessings,
Chana Keefer
My goodness! Thank you for posting. Yes, my year with the “boys” was a difficult one, mainly because of my immaturity and their inexperience! Yet, the year was the one that catapulted them into the pageant business. You must have been in the Miss Texas-Miss Universe. I believe that 1975 was the last year that Guyrex was part of Miss Texas-Miss America. They were asked to leave the board, or I should politely say, they split because of artistic differences. I know what you mean about not seeing some of “what was obvious.” And, yet, the experience was beneficial. Every job I ever had was due to my title. Still, there was a personal cost from my year with Guyrex. Congratulations on your books! Funny how we “beauty” queens have brains. 🙂
I am still writing the manuscript, and I have another book that I must market next spring. But hopefully, I will have The Pink Dress ready to go by next June. I will let you know! Best, Janie
Hey Jody, recognized Jane’s name. That’s 3 of us so far completing the triangle.
Remember Aundie Evers and Candace Grey.
Oh yes, may Candace rest in peace. She was gorgeous. Aundie was indomitable.
Not sure how I missed this entry, but I’m catching up! Loved this little nibble of the feast that will be “The Pink Dress!”
Nancie, what you read is the preface to the book! Glad you liked it!
Janie, I cannot wait to read this book. Somehow I happen to read the excerpt above after “moving around” in Goodreads. Plan on submitting request to our county library system to purchase.
Absolutely! Thank you, Carla!
I drank many a margarita at El Bandido – vaguely knew a couple of Miss El Paso’s in passing (Jodi Bowen ran a consignment store on the east side and came to the UTEP student association to get endorsed as Miss UTEP so she could take a second shot at Miss Texas ) and a former Miss Texas Teen was in my sorority along with Daw’s, Abrahams, Malooly’s and the Mora’s (Chico’s tacos) who I also went to high school with as well as some of the Lama family. A number of women in the sorority were contestants in Miss El Paso and/or the Cotton Queen court.
Looking back what’s amazing is how gay friendly El Paso was in the 70’s / 80’s . Women with money wanted to be dressed by GuyRex. Beauty pagent contestants moved to El Paso to enter the pageants to try to get noticed and be “developed” by them. Despite the laws of Texas at the El Paso gay community was pretty out in the open (a friends father had come out in the 70’s and I met a lot of really interesting people in the community through social events he would have) and I don’t recall hearing about harassment/threats etc. against the people I knew.
I’m decades gone from El Paso, and don’t think I could ever return to live there, but it was great place to be in high school and college and go a little wild on both sides of the border.