Miss SD Pageant sparkles with Ray Peterson touch
HOT SPRINGS | For one week in June the Mueller Civic Center gymnasium in Hot Springs is transformed into a theater of glamour and beauty with a Broadway-style stage that is the backdrop for the annual Miss South Dakota Scholarship Pageant. The creative genius behind the elaborate production of music, decorations, entertainment and pageantry is Ray Peterson, of Brookings.
Peterson is a SDSU professor emeritus of theater. He began his 50-year history with the pageant in 1966 as a junior at the then-General Beadle College in Madison, which is now called Dakota State University. He was an actor and vocalist in the college theater productions and was invited to sing at the pageant by his theater professor, who was producing and directing the pageant at that time.
When Peterson saw the stage for the first time, he took on a new challenge. “I thought, they need more than a vocalist,” he said. “They need a set with the Ray Peterson touch.”
He began by hanging pleated fabric around the back of the Case Auditorium where the pageant was being held. His parents, who, according to Peterson, hadn’t traveled away from their hometown of Oldham, agreed to help him with the pageant. “They came to Hot Springs and became my main tech crew,” he said. “They helped over a number of years.” His mother stapled the pleats in the fabric, and his father helped build the sets.
In 1969 Peterson was drafted into the Army through the lottery system. However, the draft board agreed to let him wait to enter the service until he finished the pageant that year. During 1970 he was stationed in Vietnam, where he worked in the main headquarters and continued to work on Miss South Dakota pageant scripts.
“I only missed the 1970 pageant,” he said.
Pocket full of themes
He writes his scripts according to the talent. Sometimes there are more vocalists than dancers, and other years it is the opposite. This year there will be different people as emcees each night.
As for themes for the pageants, Peterson will never run out of them. “I just reach in my back pocket,” he said. “I have so many that we probably won’t do them all. I don’t zero in on a theme until I know who the new Miss South Dakota is.”
This year the theme is “Still Living the Dream.” He chose the theme in honor of the current Miss South Dakota Autumn Simunek, who dreamed of being Miss South Dakota since she was a child, he said.
Music plays an important role in the pageant. Peterson listens to music on his Sirius radio as he travels. The Miss America organization wants local pageants to use contemporary, popular music, but that presents a challenge, he said. “The audiences are primarily older and don’t appreciate rap and some of the words in the new songs,” he said. “That’s why I use medleys in the productions because they bring a balance and are tied together thematically.”
Peterson finds pulling together all the elements of the pageant a challenge. “I thrive on a challenge,” he said. “That’s why I’m here is to continue to meet that challenge.”
Peterson has outlasted 21 executive directors of the local pageant. Finding financial backing and volunteers, such as board members, committee members, home hosts and food, is becoming more difficult for the local board, he said. This year there were not enough first-grade girls available in Hot Springs to be Little Sisters, so they will be missing from the pageant.
A big challenge is the facility. Peterson has to change a gymnasium into a Broadway theater by bringing in platforms, creating structures, setting up the lighting equipment and the sound equipment. Sometimes he has had to borrow some of these elements from the South Dakota State University theater. He is especially grateful to all the volunteers who help put all of the elements together every year.
He strives to provide a quality performance that will showcase the contestants. “As producer, I demand a lot from the contestants,” he said.
He holds a pre-pageant in Pierre about a month before the pageant. During a two-day orientation workshop the contestants learn how to promote themselves. They also learn the choreography.
Becoming a sisterhood
Peterson has stayed with the pageant over the 50 years because of the people he has met. “It’s not only that I have a love for what I’m doing but also for what it stands for,” he said. “It’s because of what it does for the woman (contestant) and for the families.” He enjoys the close friendships that have developed over the years.
About 40 former Miss South Dakotas will be attending the pageant this year. Social media has done a lot for the program by making connections between the former Miss South Dakotas, he said. “They have truly become a sisterhood.”
A Gala to mark the 70th anniversary of the pageant will honor the former Miss South Dakotas. The Gala will be held at the Red Rock River Resort on Friday. The evening will feature solos, duets and instrumentalists, and a sit-down dinner. Tickets cost $50. For information, call 605-745-5224.
The pageant, which will be held June 16, 17 and 18, will begin at 6 p.m. this year instead of 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the Mueller Center on June 13-15, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., and June 16-18 from 3 p.m. to showtime.
If you go to the pageant you will probably see Peterson moving about making sure everything goes as planned. Then when the challenges of the 2016 pageant are behind him, he will have already pulled the plans for next year’s pageant out of his back pocket.
“There’s a satisfaction at the end of year,” he said. “I can look at it and think, there’s my baby.”
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