SML's Helmandollar is the new Miss Virginia

In beauty pageant drama, it wouldn't make the top 10. When you compare it to Miss California USA Carrie Prejean's comments about same-sex marriage or to the photos that cost Vanessa Williams her Miss America title, it hardly ranks as scandal.

But, for the Miss Virginia Pageant, the fact that a young woman who was not one of the pageant's top five finalists would, because of a series of circumstances, become Miss Virginia is believed to be unprecedented.

And for Chinah Helmandollar, Miss Smith Mountain Lake 2009, it's a stroke of good fortune.

Helmandollar this week assumed the title of Miss Virginia 2009 following the crowning of Fredricksburg's Caressa Cameron as Miss America 2010.

The Hardy woman, who made the top 11 in the 2009 pageant and was fourth runner-up as Miss Greater Franklin County in 2008, succeeded Cameron because the other young women in the top five turned down the title. And that, said Helmandollar, is just fine with her.

"It doesn't bother me at all. I've always been about Miss Virginia," she said. "This is the job I've always wanted."

Since she competed for Miss Virginia last summer, Helmandollar has been living at the lake, working at The Cottage Gate at Westlake Towne Center and interning with Sara Elizabeth Timmins, producer of "Lake Effects," a movie Timmins hopes to film this year at Smith Mountain Lake.

Helmandollar found out about her new job on Monday when pageant officials called and asked if she'd accept.

Since then, she's been getting ready to leave SML and assume her duties, a large part of which will involve speaking to school children. And that's something Helmandollar, who majored in theater at James Madison University, said she most looks forward to.

"This is right up my alley. I love speaking at schools," she said. "I want to segue this into what I hope is a lifetime career of performing."

Had she not accepted the title, Helmandollar, 23, could have competed once more for Miss Virginia before aging out.

Bootie Bell Chewning of Vinton, executive producer of the Miss Virginia pageant, said once a young woman secures the Miss Virginia title, she no longer is eligible to compete, and that most likely is why the finalists turned down the title.

Chewning said in her 45 or so years in beauty pageants she's not seen "anything like this happen."

She said she thought both Kylene Barker and Nicole Johnson, Miss Virginia winners who went on to become Miss America, were succeeded by their first runners-up.

"It's just real unusual circumstances, but Chinah can take over and I know she'll do a great job," said Chewning. "She's a very personable, darling girl. How she's matured into such a wonderful young woman is amazing."