She walked down the runway, serenaded by Donny and Marie Osmond’s rendition of “There she is…”

She held her hands to her face, crying and hugging others on stage.

She is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and is working on a master’s degree in design. She is a promising fashion designer and a talented vocalist.

Oh, and she also looks great in a swimsuit.

Miss Kentucky Heather Renee French, 24, was crowned Miss America Saturday night, after first winning a preliminary swimsuit competition in a tasteful white bikini.

I’m sure Heather is a very nice girl. From her interviews, I’m pretty sure she’s intelligent and articulate, and she’ll probably be a great fashion designer someday.

But I’m still disappointed in everything she stands for.

It’s not that I hate the Miss America pageant. I really don’t. I think it’s sort of funny, and every year I always root for contestants from my home state, even though Miss South Dakota never wins.

There were even some parts of this year’s pageant that I really enjoyed. For example, Miss Nevada Gina Giacinto won the third night of swimsuit preliminaries in a suit she bought for $12.95. She’s a Radio City Rockette in Las Vegas. You’ve got to like that.

But I was struck again this year while watching the pageant by the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

The contestants are paraded as sophisticated, intelligent women. They tout all of their collegiate honors, they display their impressive talents as ballerinas or accomplished pianists, and they try not to sound dumb when asked stupid questions by Marie Osmund.

But Miss America contestants will never — and should never — be taken seriously until they stop competing in swimsuits.

One of the most telling points of the evening was a question Marie Osmond asked Miss Illinois, who ended up as the first runner-up.

Osmund asked Miss Illinois whether she thought America was obsessed with appearances.

Hmm, I don’t know, Marie. America celebrates an organization that awards a $40,000 scholarship to a woman because she’s prettier than 50 other women. Do you think America is obsessed with appearances?

Osmund went on to ask Miss Illinois about young women who resort to plastic surgery because they are “obsessed with appearances.”

I could hardly restrain myself from shouting at the TV.

Maybe, Marie, it is the Miss America pageant that encourages society to be concerned foremost with a woman’s appearance.

Maybe the pageant makes people think that how you look in a bathing suit has anything at all to do with what kind of a person you are.

And maybe, just maybe, the pageant actually convinces intelligent, talented young women everywhere that they aren’t good enough to represent America just because they aren’t size fours.

The most frustrating thing is that the pageant doesn’t even realize how it destroys the young women it is supposed to encourage.

The Miss America pageant has come a long way. It used to not even bother with the ambitions and scholarship of its women. It used to be concerned only with glorifying half-naked girls.

But in 1999, each woman had a platform — a problem she was committed to solving or people she was charged with helping.

The platforms are there to prove that these women are smart, dangit, and they’re out to fix the world.

And that’s just great. That’s terrific. But it’s a load of crap.

If the organizers of the Miss America pageant were actually interested in what these women want to accomplish, they would forget about the swimsuit competition.

I’ll be honest with you. I am a little envious of the women in Saturday night’s pageant.

I’ll never be Miss America. I’ll probably never look like anyone who is Miss America. I’ll certainly never be able to walk out on a stage in front of thousands of people wearing only a bikini. No way.

But I can still be smart and desirable without winning a beauty pageant. I can still change the world. I might actually have a better chance because I’m not Miss America.

Yyoung women across the country need to realize that, too.

If the organizers really cared about finding a woman who could represent everything promising and intelligent about America, they would encourage girls of every height and weight and complexion and hair color to compete for Miss America.

They would award $40,000 scholarships to bright young women who have a real chance at changing the world, instead of to pretty faces who will spend a year campaigning for some “platform.”

When that day arrives, then I’ll be happy for whoever is crowned Miss America. I’ll sing along with “There she is…” and I’ll cry, too, when she realizes she’s winner.

Because she’ll deserve it.

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Sara Ziegler is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, S.D. She won’t be challenging Miss South Dakota for the crown anytime soon.