Chopping down the pageant tree and inspecting its rings reveals much about the nation -- and not merely in the technical landmarks of first live radio broadcast (1925), first live television broadcast (1954) and first color TV broadcast (1966). Just as the first Miss America, Margaret Gorman in 1921, resembled the American ideal at the time -- silent screen star Mary Pickford -- so have contestants and winners come to reflect, and sometimes preview, what mainstream America accepts.

The first black woman to enter was Iowa's Cheryl Adrienne Browne in 1970; six years later Delaware's Deborah Lipford was the first African-American to make it to the top 10, and in 1984 Vanessa Williams won the crown. The first Asian-American to enter, Hawaii's Yun Tau Zane, came in 1948, just three years after Japanese internment camps were shut down. It took until 2001 for an Asian-American, Angela Perez Baraquio, also from the Aloha State, to win.

A Native American, Oklahoma's Norma Smallwood, won in 1926. The first Jew, Bess Myerson, won in 1945 -- the same year that scholarship money was first offered. In 1995, Heather Whitestone of Alabama, who is deaf, became the first disabled woman to win. Three years later, Nicole Johnson of Virginia -- a diabetic -- became the first woman with a life-threatening illness to win. Latinas like this year's Miss Nevada, Teresa Benitez, have been nominated before but have yet to gain a crown.

How many Jews are in Bush's Cabinet? How many Asians star on prime-time TV? How many African-Americans are in the Senate? How many high-profile films has deaf actress Marlee Matlin starred in since "Children of a Lesser God"?

This year's entrants included six African-Americans, one Eskimo, one Hawaiian, one Native American and one Indian. Ten of the contestants grew up in public housing; six come from single-parent homes; three read the Bible every day.

Platforms weren't required until 1990, when Debbye Turner won with "Motivating Youth to Excellence," but politics have long been part of the contest. In 1944, Kentucky's Venus Ramey, Miss District of Columbia, worked with the House and Senate to get full voting rights for the citizens of D.C. -- a cause so ahead of its time it still hasn't happened 58 years later.

This year, Benitez declares herself to be the future senator from Nevada, so naturally, smartass that I am, I interview her to see if she knows what she's talking about. She does. She embarrasses me for being such a skeptic. At 17, she co-founded a group that lobbies for low-income women, and she has personally registered 1,500 voters. She cites Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the assistant majority leader, as one of her role models.

I interviewed Reid, I say. He told me that President Bush lied to Nevada voters about his secret support to ship nuclear waste to the state's Yucca Mountain facility. I ask her if she agrees. In her answer she shows more spine than half the Democrats on Capitol Hill.

"He did on this," Benitez, 24, says. "He said he would not allow Yucca Mountain to happen and he did a complete 180 and pushed through Yucca Mountain legislation and supported it. I felt very betrayed by the president when he did that."

She considers the pageant a "dry run" for her eventual state Senate run, she says. "The premises are exactly the same. You have a limited amount of time and resources to convince a panel of judges that you are the person who is best able to represent that community. You're running on a platform. There are an amazing amount of parallels between the two."

Most contestants aren't so outspoken, but then again, neither are most politicians. But plenty of Miss A's have raised some hell. In the throes of the Roe vs. Wade decisions, Miss America 1974, Colorado's Rebecca King, proclaimed herself pro-choice. This was King's second shocker -- she had already committed pageant blasphemy by saying that she entered the pageant for the scholarship money.

Nowadays, scholarship money is everyone's motivation. Many of these girls have tried for the crown before and lost, only to return a year or two or three later to make it to the Boardwalk -- and money for school. Benitez lost her state competition as Miss Sparks in 1997, Miss Silver State in 1998, Miss Reno in 1999, and Miss University of Nevada-Reno in 2001 before finally landing the state crown this year. To hear her tell it, the trip hasn't been so bad.

"All in all, I've already funded my entire undergraduate degree," Benitez says, adding it all up to approximately $15,000. She'll add thousands to this kitty throughout the week in various awards, culminating in an additional $25,000 for her showing as 3rd runner-up.

Similarly, Miss America-to-be Erika Harold walks me through all the Miss Illinois contests she has lost. As Miss Champaign-Urbana in 1998, she was trounced in the state competition. "I had a terrible dress on," she laughs. "I wasn't as familiar with the system as I should have been and I had this terrible royal blue monstrosity."

She won Miss East-Central Illinois in 1999, but lost the state contest; was Miss Kishwaukee Valley in 2000 but lost the state contest; was Miss Land of Lincoln, representing the Springfield area, in 2002, and finally got the nod.

Harold says she got interested because of the scholarship money: Her mom told her she would need to help provide for her college education, and with the pageant providing more than $40 million in scholarships and cash assistance to young women this past year alone, Harold says that's when she started exploring the option.

Her mom remembers it a little differently. "When she was about 12 or 13, she started saying 'I'd like to be Miss America,'" Donna Tanner Harold tells me two nights later, just minutes before the pageant begins. "She was just interested in it."

Are women like Harold, our new Miss America, shamed away from admitting that they want to be Miss America because they desire the accompanying glamour and fame? Most definitely. I ask Harold what she would say to her future sisters at Harvard Law School, who will no doubt look askew at her tiara, sash and bikini walk.

"I would stress the issue of empowerment," Harold says. "Participating in the Miss America contest has given me the equipment and skills" to make a difference. "Not to mention the scholarship assistance," she adds.

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