Las Vegas Weekly

January 20, 2009 · 1:02 PM

We pose a single, contest-caliber question to Miss Nevada

By John Katsilometes

2009 Miss Nevada Julianna Erdesz and Mr. Vegas DeLuxe Robin Leach.

Photo: John Katsilometes

Today I played Miss America host Mario Lopez to Julianna Erdesz’s Miss Nevada. The difference being, I’m no Mario Lopez, while Julianna Erdesz is really Miss Nevada. The 24-year-old, brunette Renoite is representing our state Saturday night in the Miss American Pageant at the Planet Hollywood Theatre for the Performing Arts (the pageant starts at 5 p.m. local time and will be broadcast at 8 p.m. on TLC).

After Julianna finished with her interview with my man, the ubiquitous Robin Leach (catch his coverage on sister site Vegas DeLuxe), I sat down and asked Julianna the type of question she might face from Lopez on Saturday. She answered in the allotted 30 seconds. The exchange:

Me: “This week we inaugurated a new president of the United States, Barack Obama. How would you say Mr. Obama embodies the spirit of Miss America?”

Miss Nevada: “I think that Mr. Obama embodies the spirit of Miss America because he is all heart. I can tell by a person’s personality exactly what kind of job they would do, and the No. 1 quality that I think Miss America and Barack Obama will share is charisma, and a true passion for what they want to do. He didn’t get there because it was an easy road. He has fought so much and so hard to be there. I think that’s a similarity between him and a lot of us girls competing for Miss America. So, heart, passion, charisma and a genuine love of doing what he wants to do.”

Afterward, she asked, “So, what’s my score?” I had to think and she said, “Between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest …”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the 1-to-10 scale,” I said, laughing. “I’ll say an 8.”

Miss Nevada thought for a moment and said, “Not bad.”

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