Editorials:

It’s been an uneven month for beauty pageants in the Surf City area.

Cassie Cotarelo, a senior at Marina High School, was crowned Miss Huntington Beach for 2010 on Sunday, and along with her court, she’ll represent the city at events throughout the year. She’ll also have a rose bush planted in her name by City Hall, no small thing.

At the same time, the Miss Fountain Valley Scholarship Pageant, which a group of city and business leaders are trying to restart after 19 years of dormancy, has been slow out of the gate. The pageant was intended for March 13, but due to a lack of contestants, the organizers have pushed the date back to Nov. 13.

Not everyone loves beauty contests — at least, not everyone who saw “Little Miss Sunshine” — and some believe they put too much emphasis on conformity and physical beauty.

Still, as Amy Hart, the businesswoman spearheading the Miss Fountain Valley revival, has pointed out, the true intent of the pageants is to provide scholarships to hard-working young women.

That, coupled with the relationships that are forged when businesses around town donate scholarship money, is enough to make us hope Miss Fountain Valley succeeds on its second try in November.

So we encourage eligible young women, who are 17 to 24 years old and live, work or go to school in Fountain Valley, to enter their names for competition.

After all, the winner will go on to compete for Miss California — and that’s surely worth a rose bush or two.