2/8/2010
By GORDON D. FIEDLER JR. Salina Journal

Lexie Edison is a faithful reader of Discovery Girls magazine, so when the then 11-year-old Meadowlark Ridge Elementary School fifth- grader learned last spring of a chance to represent Kansas in the bimonthly periodical, she jumped.

"I'd seen it before and I thought it would be cool to be in the magazine," said Edison, now a sixth-grader at Lakewood Middle School.

The application asked 11 questions. The California-based publication would then pick the best 12 respondents from Kansas to appear as the main story and photo spread in its October/November 2010 issue.

She shipped off her answers around the end of May 2009, as did about 1,100 other Kansas pre-teen hopefuls. In early June, Edison received a phone call telling her she was one of the lucky 12.

"I was eating (breakfast) and I choked," she said. "I really didn't believe it. " 'Great, thank you very much,' " she remembers telling the caller.

Her mom, Denice Justus, recalls a bit less composure from her daughter.

"There was lots of screaming," Justus said.

The magazine ("created by girls, for girls" ages 8 and older), features youngsters from a different state each issue. This will be the first issue to showcase Kansas girls.

Edison believes it was her novel application that helped seal the deal. Applicants were asked to answer the questions in a unique and creative way.

An avid scrapbooker, Edison knew immediately the form her application would take.

"I made it really fun," she said. "I love scrapbooking. I've been doing it for several years."

Questions ranged from the shallow to the deep, and each one she illustrated with photos and other scrapbook doodads.

The easiest to answer concerned her future.

Edison is a dancer for the Tamara Howe School of Dance and dreams of owning her own dance studio and fashion boutique in "a building in downtown Chicago with ... a view of Michigan Lake," she wrote.

Anticipating a follow-up request for more detail, she added that the boutique would be on the first floor, with the dance studio upstairs. She didn't stop there. "I also want to be married and have three children named Connor, Brooks and Cambri."

The hardest to answer was the question asking her to describe her worst day.

"That was when my dad died," she said. John Edison died of a heart attack on April 29, 2008.

"I made a scrapbook of all the pictures of me and my dad and I dedicated a dance to him for the school talent show that year," she wrote in part in her application. "I danced to the song, 'My Father's Eyes,' by Amy Grant and had a video of pictures of him in the background."

She used some of those pictures in her application scrapbook. Whether she got points for how many of the judges she made weep, she'll never know. The magazine didn't return the book.

In subsequent correspondence, she was told to report to Kansas City July 19 and 20, 2009, for the photo shoot. The instructions included an odd request for the middle of summer: bring a Halloween costume. Because the issue would hit the newsstands in October, the publishers wanted a fall theme.

So off she went to Kansas City, where the magazine threw a Halloween party for her and the other 11 girls.

"The photographer was snapping pictures the whole time for the magazine," Justus said.

The photo session the second day made Edison feel like a model, she said.

Each girl spent about 30 minutes with the photographer. These photos will compose the two-page spread featuring the "Girls of Kansas."

The photographer also mixed and matched pairs of girls for the magazine cover; the selection will be made later by the editors.

Although she and the other girls were together for only two days, Edison said she made lifelong friends. There is even talk of a reunion next year, after the magazine comes out.

"They realized how much they were alike," Justus said.

nGordon D. Fiedler Jr. can be reached at 822-1407 or by e-mail at gfiedler@salina.com.

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