Miss Oklahoma

It’s been quite a while since I posted, but I figured this was worth the effort!  Besides, this is probably my one and only chance to say that “I personally know Miss Oklahoma.” 

For those of you who don’t know, Emoly West is the new Miss Oklahoma.  Now, I might be just one of her 1,534 Facebook friends, but more importantly I’m one of only 25(ish) other people who spent an entire semester with her oversees in the fall of 2006.  Here is the proof!  Yes, those were the best pics I could find online.  To be honest, I don’t know her that well and really don’t think she likes me that much, but that’s beside the point!  I got to thinking the other day, what if someone called me up and was like, ""Leighton.  You’re one of Emoly’s ‘closest’ friends, what can you tell us about her?”  Here is what I would say…

I have two Emoly West stories, which are basically the sum total of our Pac Rim 2006 contacts.  The first one happened in China.  It was a Sunday and we were slated for about 23 hours of straight Chinese church.  I’m a HUGE fan of going to church in other countries and getting that experience because I think it’s very eye opening, but this was the day from Hell.  First of all (Oh yeah, this story has very little to do with Emoly West), I woke up that day with nausea, a migraine the size of Mongolia, and what doctors refer to as…Diarrhea.  Now.  You could compose a list – if you wanted to – of the top 10 places you don’t want to have the runs and Beijing China 2006 would be right up there with Sahara Desert, West Kansas, and Times Square.  The afternoon ended in a damp dark closet type room in a grocery store with me hovering over a hole in the ground praying no one opened the door and exposed me to the whole dried bird meat section.  But before I got there, I was in a one room church in the middle of a hospital trying to stay awake and fight off migraines.  A couple of other guys around me were talking about some episode of the Simpsons or maybe Family Guy where the basis of the show was how much better it was to be a guy than a girl.  I was laughing along with some jokes, but most of my concentration was elsewhere.  Enter Emoly West.  She heard the joking (we’re talking lame George Costanza type joking here) and decided to come and tell the group of us that we, and I quote, “were not real men.  Real men don’t joke like that” and something else about us not deserving women in our lives.  Needless to say, it was a running joke the rest of the trip. 

Our second run in was in New Zealand.  We were road tripping across the southern island in three old church vans with about 30 of us.  No trailer for our bags, no 7th grader that takes up 3 square inches with his 52 lbs frame.  If it was not the most beautiful country on the planet, it would have been miserable.  Anyway, we stopped at a gas station to get some drinks and snacks and fuel and Emoly bought a granola bar.  I opened it without her knowing and took a fairly large sized bite and then claimed to know absolutely nothing but my name when questioned.  At the time for various reasons I thought it was pretty humorous, but looking back I probably would have forgiven her if she had pulled me out of the van and cleaned my clock. 

Hope that answers your questions.  Congrats to Miss Oklahoma, Emoly West!