Community members packed the Buckingham County High School’s auditorium Saturday in support of the Dillwyn Fire Department. The event was the Womanless Beauty Pageant, for which an eager audience paid $10 a person. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the audience might’ve been better served with blindfolds.

All in good fun, the 15 wannabe beauty contestants were less than modest. When most of the contestants have a 5 o’clock shadow, well… they’re somewhat less runway worthy.

Sans Bob Barker, the master of ceremonies duties fell to Jordan Miles, a former Farmville Herald editor. He was an immediate target for sweaty, smelly hugs from the burly contestants, whose stage names for the evening included “Anita Mann” and “Tantalizing Tessie.” Repeating many of the other contestant names would’ve earned a teenage boy a trip to the principal’s office.

Meanwhile, many of the contestants seemed enamored with their new-found appendages – namely the balloons inflated to create some womanly curves on hairy chests… and legs… and backs. By the end of the pageant some contestants seemed content to hold them so they didn’t fall out.

Apparently womanless pageants are the current go-to fundraiser. The website Pinterest offers tutorials on how to stage them. They’ve been in vogue for a decade or more, with attention regionally given to woman-less pageants in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina and in 2016 the Nansemond River Pilot’s Club in Suffolk, held its 16th womanless pageant.

The pageants winner was “Miss Tess” also known as Wallace Goode of the Dillwyn Fire Department. The complete stage name is better left unrepeated here.

It was apparent from the cheers and laughter from both the stage and the audience that a good time was had by all.