Beauty And The Beaker

The harassment continued and even worsened in high school, where Ginn built her social life around the math team. The alpha girls kept punishing her, staging weekend scavenger hunts that listed the Ginns' mailbox or Jamie's car antenna or radio among the items to be collected. She remembers consciously deciding not to apply herself to her fullest.

She concentrated on her dancing and was encouraged by the older girls at a local dance studio who had won scholarship money in the Miss Ocean City pageant. She won the title -- and $5,000 for college -- at 16. But in hindsight, she regrets not allowing herself the same ambition academically. She finished 11th in her graduating class, she remembers, and her tormentor ranked seventh.

"You win," she says now, with a bitter smile.

Beauty and Biofuel

At a company that is home to more than 2,000 scientists, Ginn holds a spot on one of DuPont's key research projects: turning corn into fuel. Her assignment is to build a computer model of a biorefinery and to perform a life-cycle assessment measuring the economic and environmental impacts of biofuels from harvest to hot rod.

But she was restless. She daydreamed about going to medical school. Or developing her own cosmetics line. She did volunteer work to raise money for Crohn's research.

Ginn rented an apartment in Philadelphia and commuted more than an hour to work in Wilmington, Del., so she could study dance at a well-regarded studio.

She adopted a stray dog, choosing an ill-tempered rat terrier with a penchant for biting over the one whose neck had been broken, leaving its head permanently cocked to the side. Mean trumped ugly.

As a chemical engineer, she was invited to speak at an automotive conference. "I came in wearing a gray suit, maybe pink shoes. They laughed. And then I started talking, and they stopped." On the convention floor, she spotted spokesmodels in miniskirts and boots riding Segways, "and I thought: I'd rather be on this side of the fence."

Back home, her pageant supporters reminded her that 24 was the age limit to compete for Miss America.

"I always forget how much I hate it until I'm there," Ginn says of beauty contests. She says she despises the very premise of one person being worthy and everyone else, not. Yet pageants offered rewards that still tantalized her -- enough scholarship money to reconsider med school, a showcase for her talent, celebrity status to advocate for causes she believes in.

She lacked the residency to qualify for state pageants in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, but her job at DuPont made her eligible for Delaware. She believes "that it was in my destiny to be Miss Delaware. I believe in God's plan."

She took vacation time to compete for the state title, confessing her plans to co-workers in advance, first closing their office doors and then bursting into nervous tears. "I was worried about what they would think about me," she admits. Once crowned, she took a year's leave from DuPont. Miss Delaware, although unpaid, was not allowed to hold another job. Jamie's parents took over her rent; an aunt made payments on her new Prius. Her family paid for the gowns and designer suits not covered by the state organization's meager wardrobe allowance. Becoming a role model for young women meant sacrificing her independence.