Six ladies compete for Ms. Senior Nye County

Six ladies will compete in the Eighth Annual Ms. Senior Nye County Pageant April 12 at the Pahrump Nugget Hotel and Casino.

The winner is eligible to participate in the Ms. Senior Nevada Pageant Aug. 20 at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The pageant will feature the talent competitions from contestants and guest performances. This year Ms. Senior Nevada Kat Ray, a Las Vegas entertainer, will sing jazz tunes. Karaoke artist Mike Zamen will also sing. The Desert Spurs, a dance group from Las Vegas, will dance two numbers accompanied by tambourines.

The contestants include Nancy Silva, a Pahrump resident for 26 years, who was a food server at the Mountain View Casino for nine years, now working at the Denny’s Restaurant in Beatty. Silva dances with the Nye County Starlets, pageant founder Scotty Winegar’s dance group. For her talent competition, she will dance to the song “Dancing Queen” by Abba.

Dot Ahrens moved to Pahrump two and a half years ago from Atlanta, Ga. where she worked for Delta Airlines and worked part-time for a funeral home for 42 years. She loves cooking and telling jokes to make people laugh. Ahrens sells Mary Kay Cosmetics in Pahrump and occasionally gives seniors free samples. Her talent portion will be telling jokes.

Donna Jokinen was the first runner-up in the Ms. Senior Nye County Pageant last year where she won the talent competition. She was a property manager for 26 years in California, owned her own business there for 10 years and drove truck cross country for a year and a half for U.S. Express before retiring in Pahrump 11 years ago. Jokinen ran for Nye County public administrator in the 2010 election. She owns DJ Jewelry and Designs, was chairman of the Moose Lodge Educational Advancement Committee and belongs to the Nye County Starlets. She plans to sing and dance to Ethel Merman’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

Linda Wright has been a Pahrump resident five years and got married last June. She was a Head Start/early childhood education teacher for 30 years in Las Vegas. Wright is active in the community as a volunteer for the Holiday Task Force community dinners, serves on the food securities committee for Pahrump food banks, belongs to the NyE Communities Coalition and the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce, is a cancer survivor who handles registration for the annual Relay for Life, is president of the Ladies Auxiliary to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 10054, takes care of the VFW food bank and coordinates the annual USO show. In her spare time her hobbies include decorating cakes, she will do the final stages of cake decoration for the talent show.

Beverly Turney is a 14-year Pahrump resident. She competed in the 2010 and 2011 Ms. Senior Nye County Pageants. Turney is active in the Spring Mountain Apartment Complex where she does neighborhood checks and organizes pot lucks. She was formerly an administrator, resident manager, certified nursing assistant and care-giver at a group home in Las Vegas for 20 years. Her hobbies are arts and crafts. For the talent competition she plans to demonstrate different stages of quilting.

Jo Dee Van Stavern was first runner-up for Ms. Senior Nye County in 2012. She came to Pahrump 22 years ago but recently has commuted occasionally between Pahrump and Florida, her previous home. Van Stavern owned and operated three Accent Beauty Salons and today runs Hair FX Salon on Loop Road. Van Stavern does volunteer work for the Moose Lodge and Pahrump Health and Rehabilitation Center, putting on song and dance shows by the Nye County Starlets, she also organized a charity function two years ago that raised $2,500 for the Food for Thought program. Her hobbies include singing and dancing with the Nye County Starlets. She would like to start up a low-cost spay and neuter clinic in Pahrump. For her talent competition, Van Stavern will sing Kris Kristofferson’s country music ballad, “Help Me Make It Through The Night.”

Show time is at 3 p.m. April 12. Tickets are $15 and are available in advance from Scotty Winegar, 727-0309 or Teri Rogers at 764-0006 or at the door.