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Ms. Senior America

Ms. Senior America Gayle-Novak--Ms-Senior-America-2018.jpg
2018 Ms. Senior Amercia Gayle Novak.
Photo courtesy Ms. Senior America

Challenging attitudes about aging one pageant at a time

By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com

In the 1970s, one man took on the concept of women and aging with the goal of making a difference in the lives of some of the New Jersey seniors he was ministering to.

Last fall, Time magazine covered the 2018 Ms. Senior America National Pageant in its October online edition. It was an ode to a man – now in his 80s – who found a way to challenge – and change – the cultural stereotype of older women.

Dr. Alfonso “Al” Mott – a singer and theologian – saw the older women in his New Jersey ministry slipping through the cracks socially and emotionally, and looked for a way to “uplift their spirits,” according to Dan Mott, Al’s younger brother and a trustee for the non-profit organization Ms. Senior America. “I remember going around with him and [the women] were depressed. The pageant was one of the things he did to try and uplift seniors,” Dan shared with Prime.

At 16, Dan said he found himself hanging lights in the Long Branch Armory and helping his brother prepare for the first-ever Ms. Senior pageant. It was a bit of a makeshift affair, he remembered, but the women who walked across that first stage beamed.

“It was 1972 or 1974,” Dan recalled. “It was a very interesting beginning.”

By 1994, the Ms. Senior America was a full-fledged National Pageant, drawing reigning queens selected through local pageants in nearly every state. With a mission to “develop, foster and promote programs and activities that dispel the myths of aging” the network of Ms. Senior pageants works to enhance “the lives of senior Americans by providing them the opportunities to grow mentally, physically and spiritually” both through the pageant and through outreach into their communities. “Drawing on their experiences from the past, their knowledge of the present and their continuing enthusiasm of the future,” Ms. Senior America seeks to showcase the resilience and inner beauty of its contestants, according to its mission statement.

And to quote a cliché, it’s come a long way, baby, since those first contestants crossed the Armory stage in Long Branch.

“The pageant hasn’t changed, but the women have changed,” Dan observed, looking back over nearly 40 years of contests and contestants, 25 of them as the official Ms. Senior America organization. Today’s contestants, he said, are better educated, more active in both their personal lives and in their communities, and less the victims of the aging stereotype.

“I would say the women have changed in every category you could think of,” Dan added.

Ms. Senior Colorado: a Modern Queen

Gayle Novak, the reigning 2018 Ms. Senior America, is a glittering example of today’s Ms. Senior America contestant. A restaurateur and lifelong entrepreneur who has helped to raise “millions of dollars” for charities such as Volunteers of America and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in her home state of Colorado, Novak said she had “never done a pageant before Ms. Senior Colorado.”

Prime caught up with Novak late this spring, as she was packing for an appearance at the Ms. Senior America state pageant in Tennessee, something she said is part of her duties as 2018 National Queen.

“From now until September, I’m travelling a lot,” she laughed, adding that a trip to the White House might even be on the schedule.

She’s definitely coming East this summer. Novak will be appearing – and performing – at the Ms. Massachusetts Senior America pageant at Holyoke High School on July 14.

Novak confided she decided to become a contestant in her state’s pageant shortly after turning 60, the youngest age a woman can compete in Ms. Senior America. She admitted the contest idea fit her growing angst about entering her newest decade.

“I did not like turning 60, and I didn’t know what 60 is supposed to feel like and I decided to do something I had never done before,” Novak admitted. “I didn’t have a desire to parachute out of an airplane,” she continued, but “Wanted to do something.

“I Googled what women over 60 do,” Novak shared, adding one of the things that came up was the Ms. Senior Colorado pageant. “I put my computer down and said, ‘I can’t do a pageant’.”

By chance just a few days later, Novak said a former Ms. Senior Colorado contestant walked into Zane’s Italian Bistro, the restaurant she, her husband and “best friend” Ed, and her son Zane, currently own and operate. As often happens between restaurant owners and customers, the two struck up a friendly conversation.

“She said, ‘I didn’t win or even come in fifth, but the fellowship with the other women and the philanthropic work we do is just amazing’,” Novak recalled. “Right then I decided to do it.”

That decision threw her into a six-week whirlwind of learning pageant protocol and rehearsals with the Ms. Senior Colorado production team.

“They taught us how to walk on stage, how to talk – talking to large crowds was easy – and wearing a gown,” she said, adding she, luckily, had a lot of experience wearing gowns and talking to large crowds as the chair of multiple fundraisers over the years.

And they helped her to craft a show-stopping talent act.

Neither an accomplished singer nor dancer, Novak opted for an act that combined singing with a bit of comedy. She performed the song “Money, Money, Money” from the hit Broadway play, “Mama Mia”– in baggy overalls and a tool belt.

“I actually spoke more than I sang,” Novak shared. “I took the overalls and did them with Velcro, and changed the words [in the song] from ‘I can do anything’ to “I can look like a queen’.” At the end of her performance, she ripped off the overalls to reveal a dazzling red beaded gown.

“You have to razzle dazzle them if you don’t have any talent,” Novak joked.

The act worked – not only helping to garner her the Ms. Senior Colorado crown, but making her a standout at the National pageant where she said she was up against “11 professional singers and dancers” during the talent portion of competition.

But of course, talent and looking great in a sparkling gown aren’t the only things that made Novak a queen. Focusing on what the pageant calls the “Age of Elegance,” all Ms. Senior contestants are also judged on their philosophy of life.

“The beauty part with Ms. Senior America and at all the local pageants … I think what they are looking for is inner beauty,” Novak said. “What have you done for your community? What have you done for society? What have you done as a crack congresswoman or restaurateur or homemaker. I think they look for the inner beauty as well. “But they are still looking for women who take care of themselves [too],” she joked.

With its focus on women over the age of 60, Novak said one of the greatest strengths of Ms. Senior America is its ability to show these women that they matter and can still make a difference “We truly are the fabric of society,” Novak said. “We can share our joys, but we can also share our defects of character, our mistakes, and the young people can learn from them.”

Dan Mott commented that this was one of the most positive results of the Ms. Senior pageant – that “it just gives a real light not just to the contestants, but also to their families. I saw children and grandchildren, when they heard their [mothers and] grandmothers talking about their lives, they couldn’t believe it.”

Since taking the crown as reigning queen, Novak said one of her greatest joys has been connecting with young people on the middle school and high school levels about issues such as alcohol and drug use, and especially, teen suicide.

“The first school I spoke at, I thought, ‘they are going to think here is this little old lady coming in to talk to us’,” she said. “I’m not really a little old lady, but these were middle schoolers [and] they were poor inner city kids…I wore my sash and crown – and overalls – to talk to them.

“I was pleasantly surprised how receptive the kids are to the older generation,” Novak continued, saying she feels she’s offering “another level of support” to what is provided by the schools and parents.

As she looked back on her time as the reigning Ms. Senior America – she will step down when a new queen is crowned in October – Novak said it has been an eye opening and enriching experience.

“My feeling, if I had only gone into the pageant to win the crown, I might have actually walked away from it. What I really got from it is the sisterhood and the fellowship” with the other contestants, both those who competed with her, and those from past pageants, she said. “The crown is great, but it isn’t everything – that was my experience in both the Colorado and the National pageants.

“It’s not a pageant like some others – like Miss America – I believe those are more competitive, more dog-eat-dog,” Novak continued. “I didn’t feel any of that. We are truly cheering each other

on. The contestants were the greatest supporters of each other. It doesn’t matter that we are over the age of 60, we are still valuable to the community.”

The local Ms. Senior pageant

Massachusetts has been sending Ms. Senior contestants to the National Pageant since the beginning, when Bobbie Levin, then director of Adult Services at the Springfield Jewish Community Center, took on the mantle of pageant director.

Under her tutelage Massachusetts sent pageant winners who frequently placed in the top 10 in the national pageant, a tradition that continues to this day.

For the past 12 years, Lorraine Gorham – a former first runner up local pageant contestant – has been the state pageant’s director, and along with Joanne Impocco and the past contestants who comprise the pageant’s Cameo Club – has helped scores of contestants find their talent, crystalize their philosophy of life and blossom into their own “Age of Elegance.” After a few years operating out of the former Springfield Senior Center located in a renovated courthouse in downtown Springfield, the pageant now calls the Holyoke Senior Center home.

“A lot of people don’t know we are a statewide organization,” Gorman told Prime, adding that this year’s pageant again includes a contestant who has been traveling in from Eastern Massachusetts.

Gorham said like the National competition, the true strength of the Ms. Massachusetts Senior America pageant lies in the connections the women make with each other both during the pageant process and afterward, when they are inducted into the state pageant’s Cameo Club – the performing and outreach arm of the organization.

“The camaraderie with the people in this – everybody is helping everybody else, and that is nice to see in this world,” Gorham said.

We’re crowning a new Ms. Senior Massachusetts!

This year’s Ms. Senior Massachusetts pageant will take place on July 14 at 1 p.m. at Holyoke High School, located at 500 Beech St. Admission is $12, and Gorham said this year’s six contestants are ready to show off their talent and share their philosophy of life with pageant attendees.

She’s also very excited to welcome the reigning Ms. Senior America, Gayle Novak, to the Massachusetts pageant as a guest entertainer and speaker.

“She is amazing,” Gorham said. “She does ‘Money, Money, Money’ from ‘Mama Mia’ and you would think she had done this all her life, but she did not. She went to someone like I did [to help with my talent] and was able to carry it off.”

Novak said she was looking forward to her trip to Massachusetts, which includes three days in the Boston area before she joins the Ms. Massachusetts Senior America pageant in Holyoke.

“I am really enjoying [attending the pageants] because I don’t have to do all the hard work, I just get to go to it and be encouraging to the contestants,” Novak shared.

And she emphasized the pageant message is one she hopes more women take to heart.

“Just because we are over 60 doesn’t mean we aren’t important to our community as members,” Novak said. “We are at the age of elegance – we are at the age of empowerment.

“I really believe I have made a difference in people’s lives and I did not see that coming, but I see it happening,” she said.