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Beauty queen turns broadcaster

FOR MOST beauty queens, winning a pageant can be two things: a passport to fame and fortune, and second, as a springboard to an entirely new career. Beauty queens have gone on to become fashion models...

spokespersons, politicians, actresses and TV personalities. Broadcasting, or broadcast journalism, has also become an attractive career option for beauty pageant winners. In the case of 2006 Miss Philippines-Air Ginger Conejero who represented the country at the Miss Global Beauty pageant in China in September last year, her current job has taken her full circle: instead of being a celebrity, she is now interviewing them. Ginger is a familiar face and voice to viewers of TV Patrol as the top-rating newscast’s entertainment reporter.

"I’ve always wanted to be a broadcast journalist. When I was a child, I would pretend with a microphone and I’d practice," says the 24-year-old Filipino-American, who was born and raised in the United States by her Filipino parents.

She went home in 2006 to prepare for and join the Miss Philippines-Earth pageant because she felt like she needed a break. At the time, Ginger, a Political Science graduate of the University of Southern California, was working in a law office in downtown Los Angeles. "While it’s always been my dream to be a lawyer, I just felt at that time that I needed a break. So I joined the pageant."

But the unexpected happened. Ginger won the pageant, emerging first runner-up to eventual winner Catherine Untalan. "It was weird, because at the time [that I decided to join the pageant], I didn’t think anything would come of it," says Ginger. "Then I won, and everything changed." However, broadcasting didn’t enter the picture until after Ginger had completed her reign as Miss Philippines-Earth first runner-up.