The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 46

2F Jn Amttetott Sunday, Jue Miss Alabama i Teresa Cheatham comes off cloud i A T. Jt Tty. V. i By LAURA ANN FREEMAN Star Staff Writer WELLINGTON The world changed for Teresa Cheatham when she became Miss Alabama. As toe coronation crown was placed on her head a year ago, she became a symbol for Alabama.

She relinquished the crown Saturday night. There is a clause in the Miss Alabama contestant manual she still can recite from memory. "Once chosen Miss Alabama, you are Miss Alabama for a year and not yourself any longer." BEING MISS ALABAMA had its uds and downs. Teresa calls it a "Cinderella's dream world," but dream worlds have their own self-imposed limitations. "I'm not just being me.

I'm being a public figure similar to the President of the UtiitedStates, Once you become a puftficJgg'T'people will do unbelievable thBlgs? she says as she rocks back in the security of the living room easy cMjr A lot of energy goes into protecting Teresa from these unbelievable things. She is supposed to have a chaperone at all times and occasionally has been provided with bodyguards. "The reason for all this protection is so your average crackpot can't get to you," she explains. Holding her index finger outstretched like a pistol and cocking her thumb Teresa says. "While I'm on stage someone could actually aim a gun and fire." She moves the simulated pistol to chest level and makes a clicking noise.

"When I'm singing on stage, I think, 'What if that man up in the corner shoots I'm like that all the time." '4: none of it was passed on to me." Somehow, a stray letter found Its way to Teresa outside official channels and she found out. Official channels around Teresa's life are many. She can't talk to a reporter who drops by her house. She is not allowed to; it is one of the rules. To interview Teresa, a reporter must clear the meeting with her press agent at The Birmingham News and a chaperone must be present during the interview.

"Reporters have a tendency to look for controversy. A chaperone is present to make sure the girl is not flustered or put in bad situations," she says. The message to reporters is clear: oar all iconoclasts. Miss Alabama Is a symbol. For Teresa, being Miss Alabama was also what she calls "a very lucrative job." As Miss Alabama she was paid $150 as a flat fee for appearances, IS cents per mile in travel expenses and has won scholarship money totaling $19,000.

TERESA SEES a trade-off between some aspects of the pageant and the prise money. She calls the swimsuit competition a "necessary evil" and says, "What am I to complain about when they give you $19,000 in scholarships? "You give yourself over to the pageant. We don't feel like we're being sold at all. It is not as much of a meat market anymore. "Think of it this way one night's work and I don't have to worry about the money for next year's schooling." But hours of training go into that one night's work.

Teresa's boyfriend, Robbie Mason, compares Miss Alabama's preparation with that of an athlete. "You coach and you train toward the Olympics. It's like the decathlon, where you have to train in many areas. Teresa did too." Singing, walking, smiling and poise are some of the obvious areas in which Teresa practiced many hours. Less obvious but very much on her mind is opinion formation.

"You have to have opinions on everything and you have to stick to them. Before Miss America I had no opinions. I had to start researching." THE OPINIONS she developed are noncontroversial they have to be. "You must state your opinion in such a manner that would not be offensive to most people." she explains. But she has memorized the facts to back up what she says.

For example, she argues. "The ERA is unnecessary because of the Civil Rights Act and another act I can't remember. "In most cases problems of discrimination can be overcome by hard work." These opinions are presented with sincere good will and skillful diplomacy. Nevertheless, there is an unmistakable distance between Teresa and some of Alabama's struggles. On the recent Ku Klux Klan demonstrations, she says, "That makes Alabama look bad.

Frankly, I had thought we had put the racial stuff behind us. It's a shame we're still behind. But we can't help that until people want to be educated." Opinions, poise, beauty and talent all these things make Teresa very good at what she does. Between the kitchen and the living room of her home is a shelf full of trophies and a cluster of pageant photographs. In the pictures, the winner stands on the highest pedestal, her court posed around her in pyramid formation.

All wear numbers on their hips. The figures on the trophies are golden women dressed in long flowing gowns and crowns. They look like miniature Statues of Liberty. THOUGH NOT FREE in many senses, it has been a good year for Miss Alabama, a year of breathing the air of success and being first runner-up at the Miss America contest. One thing she has been told by other Miss Ala ba mas, however, is that losing ber crown will be "like falling off a cloud." She says, "In lots of ways that's good and in lots of ways for your ego it's bad.

"I'm not tired of being Miss Alabama. During the year, if I saw I was near the breaking point, I'd take little short weekend vacations. No make-up, just blue jeans. I'd forget about being Miss Alabama for a while." Other people near Teresa can't forget about Miss Alabama. They live around the bend from her bouse; their address is Teresa Cheatham Drive.

The road named for Miss Alabama slopes off the highway, curves around the Cheatham house, runs through a grove of trees, over a bridge, past some tar paper and plywood houses and tapers off at a railroad track. Near the railroad track is a house shaded by a well-worn tree. The family who lives there keeps chickens in the back yard and dogs belly-flop on the porch A man from the house looks out a Teresa Cheatham Drive and says, "She's a right nice little girl. Sometimes she waves at us when she drives THE PROTECTIVE NETWORK around Teresa is not just directed at shielding her from physical harm. It is set up to sift out things that might cause emotional harm.

too. Like criticism. The Birmingham News, which sponsors the Miss Alabama pageant "serves as a protecting agency," Teresa says. "They screen all the undesirable things." A public affairs official from The News reads her mail "She takes the constructive and throws the rest of it away." Remembering the Festival of Sacred Music, in which she made an appearance in Birmingham, Teresa says some members of the audience thought her gown was cut too low. Her public affairs official "got a lot of flack.

Of course. Teresa chats with grandmother, Mrs. Anna Prickett INTRODUCTORY OFFER cNP5 JUNE 23RD. la 1 .1 Businesswomen shy on road Ml Tl home," said Ms. Farrell "What we're saving is, 'Hey, lady, it's yours for the taking and don't be afraid to make it to fi NtW YORK (AP) The aggressive businesswoman in control of herself and her job at the office often becomes retiring and timid when sent on a business trip, a public relations manager says.

They skimp on their expense accounts. They settle for inferior hotel rooms. And when it comes to having dinner, they hide in those rooms like mice. eating from room-service trays, said June M. Farrell of Eastern Airlines' public relations department.

It is an unfortunate but common picture of a traveling businesswoman, she said during a five-hour workshop Friday. "Some women hold back They don't go on business trips because it causes problems at and further their careers. Women have to be less concerned with politeness and more concerned with telling Inquisitive bellhops that details of their lives are none of their business, Ms. Bryant said. And when fellow businessmen joke about possible amorous relationships on the road, put them in their place, said Barbara Johnson of Gulf Air.

"I just tell them I haven't even considered it." tor of Working Woman maga-line. The magazine and East-em Airlines cosponsored the seminar. Psychologist Suzanne Jeffers suggested an expense account be looked upon as an investment, adding that "big deals are made over social events." She told the women how making lists, managing their time and dressing well can minimize their uncertainties on the road 1 jt I ft the top Many problems on the road, she said, stem from insecurities about the mechanics of traveling, such as tipping, while others come from a woman's conditioned inclination to undervalue herself and be apologetic. Over half the participants in the workshop admitted they pay many of their own expenses for fear of spending too much of the company's money. "Women want a pat on the shoulder.

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"You betcha," says Mrs. Stagg, a 60-year-old firebrand with a reformist streak and a remarkable penchant for irritating politicians. "I don't ask much, just that government not be a bunch of crooks," she says. But the road to reform is a rocky one. Mrs.

Stagg has been at it for a quarter-century now, and by ber own account, she has been threatened and harassed, her children ridiculed, her reform-minded newspaper forced to fold and her crusade to open township records blocked at every turn. "If I try to look at records, they holler in my ears," she says. "If I get up at a meeting, they throw soap at me. we take people to vote, they call the taverns and say get down here and vote no on everything. "Sometimes, when they don't want to show records, they throw them in a damn truck and I've got to go chasing them around town," she says.

It is not exactly the style of adversary relationship contemplated by Thomas Jefferson, but it's the way of democracy in Bartonvilie and simply duck soup for Bessie Stagg. After 25 years as self-proclaimed watchdog of Limestone Township, she still is full of fire, stern of eye and resolute of purpose. She is forever alleging financial improprieties, attending meetings, questioning everything, searching public records for the suspicious entry. Local officials call her a crank; the calls them crooks, and everybody gets along as well as can be expected under such circumstances. "When I started toe newspaper here 18 years ago, I didn't have no education or experience.

I just had guts," she says. "I borrowed a typewriter, polled advertisers and hand delivered the first Issues. People appreciated having a place to speak. Gosh, it was their Bible back then." During its tempestuous career, the Bartonvilie News Inveighed against all manner of dark doings, from the paving of somebody's driveway with a Limestone roadgrader to the report of township trucks 10 mile away loaded with somebody else's hogs and bay. A SINGER ZIG-ZAG MACHINE FOR '99 1 UK Serpentine CHAINS mum A Swtgrmachinc with all the basics you'll need for a very special price.

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