GILLETTE — The wide smile, the blonde curls, the stride — they’re all there. She’s even got the sash and the crown. But Catherine Brown wasn’t ever a pageant girl.

She’d never even entered a pageant before June, when a friend who had been Miss Wyoming the year before inspired her to give it a try.

Brown quickly found during the weeklong competition in Sheridan that she had a lot to learn — like how to walk in heels and a swimsuit, or how to prepare to be onstage.

“I had always worn some makeup, but I didn’t know how to do stage makeup,” she said. “I had no idea how to do my hair in such a way that it would look elegant and fun and big enough to be on stage.

“I learned all of that during that week.”

The final night of the competition, a contestant from Cheyenne turned to Brown as she was putting on her final touches.

“She looked at me, and she said, ‘Uh, I hate to do this, because ... you’re my competition, but you cannot go out on stage like that,’” Brown said, laughing as she described how her competitor — now a close friend — painted her with so much makeup that Brown thought she was being “sabotaged.”