‘Inquirer’ A Total Buzzkill

On Saturday night, Kimberly Rogers won the annual Miss Philadelphia pageant. Rogers is a 23-year-old graduate of Princeton. She has a degree in molecular biology. She’s also a pharmaceutical marketing consultant for TargetRx in Horsham, which I’d assume pays pretty well. And, uh, she’s Miss Philadelphia. And she’s gorgeous. (Geeze, she’s almost date-able!)

Gee, any way you can be a total buzzkill, Inquirer reporter Diane Mastrull?

As the newly crowned Miss Philadelphia, Kimberly Rogers smiled easily for the camera yesterday in a hotel suite fragrant with congratulatory bouquets.

It was not, however, a proud morning for the city she will spend the next year representing. Since Rogers’ pageant win Saturday night on the stage of Drexel University’s Mandell Theatre, three more lives had been lost to homicide, boosting the city’s death count to more than 100.

Rogers, for her part, thinks she can stem the tide of homicides in this city, or at least try to help:

It was a development the 23-year-old resident of Richboro did not attempt to sugarcoat or dodge. Rogers said she considered Philadelphia’s murder milestone “an exciting challenge” that is “pertinent” to her platform: preventing and eliminating depression among young people.

Let’s get pumped for the murder milestone challenge! To be fair, I don’t really know what I would say if I won Miss Philadelphia and was asked about the murder rate the following day. Then again, if I won Miss Philadelphia I don’t think anybody would have a question about the “murder milestone.” (And if you think Rogers is getting off easy because she’s, as I wrote, “gorgeous,” I’d say: Most certainly.)

But the biggest part of being Miss Philadelphia is what Rogers gets to do next: Meet with Mayor Street. Whoo! Talk about a meeting of the minds! Wait. Street has a law degree and she’s a Princeton grad. I guess that joke doesn’t really work this time.

What would she say to Street? She said she’d “tell him I’m committed to serving the city and making the biggest positive impact I can.” Hey! She stole my idea. I guess I’ll just make dick jokes then.

Substance behind the smile [Inquirer]