Stuck pageant contestants helped in storm

While many Texans were hunkering down at home or looking for a warm place to stay last week during the winter storm, about 100 beauty pageant contestants from across the country were stranded in San Antonio, trying to find food and sometimes using buckets of river water to flush toilets in their hotel downtown.

Mindy Jo Miller, who at age 41 holds the title of Ms. Pennsylvania in the United States of America Pageants, said she was stunned to see empty shelves at CVS and

H-E-B when she ventured out to find something to eat.

“I haven’t seen empty shelves like that since back here when we had our first shutdown in Pennsylvania,” she said, referring to when the pandemic began nearly a year ago. “It was scary. You’re living in this thing that is so real. It really makes me re-evaluate my life, because there’s people that live like that every day — with their food insecurity and lack of access to water and heat.”

Miller, whose flight home was canceled about four times until she finally got to fly out with her daughter early Saturday, ended up helping San Antonians before she left, working as a volunteer at the Granada Homes and at a San Antonio Food Bank distribution.

The United States of America Pageants, which formed as a new pageant organization about five years ago, held its national competition in the Lila Cockrell Theatre in four categories: Teen, ages 13-19; Miss, 20-28; and Ms. and Mrs., both 29 and over. The final night of competition was Feb. 14, just before the start of the first of two snowstorms last week.

A handful of contestants from other parts of Texas or adjoining states had managed to secure rental cars or fly home before the weather got too bad. Most of them were stuck in San Antonio.

Miller said she was able to get food from a friend staying at another hotel the first night. She and the other women got by on pizzas someone had donated and food the hotel provided later. The biggest challenge, she said, was not having water for bathing. She took an “ice-cold rinse-off ” after water service returned Friday.

It was in the aftermath of the first storm that Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert met Miller and a few other contestants staying at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, while Calvert was helping relocate seniors from the Fair Avenue Apartments to the hotel. Some of the women offered to help.

Miller, a gymnastics coach who sometimes volunteers with the food bank in her hometown north of Pittsburgh, said it “helped tremendously” to get out and lend a hand at the Granada Homes, a housing complex for low-income seniors. She and others served food and water and passed out hats and gloves to residents living in a building that last week had no heat.

“When I heard there was an opportunity to go out, I needed to. It’s just like I was stuck there for a reason,” Miller said.

“Just the way people come together on such short, quick notice and they’re there to help each other, that really stands out in my mind,” she said. “The lady that I helped, she actually had just had a hip replacement, so she struggled getting up and down.”

Speaking by phone Monday, Miller said her back porch in Pennsylvania was covered with snow.

“As I look out my window now, it looks just like San Antonio did last week,” she said.

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