Miss Greek has many crowning achievements
Contributing Writer
Molly Zimpfer's smile is almost as big as her heart.
The freshman drama major from Tempe, Arizona, certainly has a lot to be smiling about these days.
Molly maintains a 3.97 GPA and is an active member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She also raised $11,700 for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the last five months.
In light of her many accomplishments, Molly was crowned Delta Tau Delta's Miss Greek 1996 on February 27.
She moved to Washington from Tempe last year.
"I think my parents just wanted to get rid of me," she joked. "People in Arizona just, like, romanticize about Seattle."
She was only at the UW a short time before becoming involved with the Miss Greek Pageant.
In fact, Molly knew relatively little about the contest before her sorority chapter nominated her as itscandidate.
"Actually, I had no idea what it entailed, " she said.
As a part of the pageant, all contestants were required to raise money for Fred Hutchinson. They brought in a total of $60,000 for cancer research.
As a contestant, Molly wrote letters explaining her involvement in "Fred Hutch," as she calls it. The letter, which asked for donations, was sent to alumni, friends and everyone she could think of.
Next, Molly sold tee-shirts and tickets to the pageant. She composed a speech about her own grandmother's bout with cancer and how it affected her.
She also needed to come up with an act for the talent portion of the contest.
Molly enlisted the help of a friend for her talent section. Together they enacted and sang "Freddie My Love," from a scene in the stage play "Grease."
The Arizona native won scholarship money and two free tickets to Disneyland. She plans to take the friend who sang with her on the Disneyland trip.
Molly has been so busy with her letter-writing campaign that she hasn't had much time for her other activities: skiing, hiking and camping.
"I'm an outdoor-type of person," she said.
She may not have much spare time now, either.
"I'm going to try to get more involved with Fred Hutch," she explained. She plans on visiting cancer patients and hopes to do an internship there as well.
Molly is already thinking ahead to graduation. She'd like to go to graduate school and get her teaching certificate.
"I want to teach, but I don't know exactly what I want to teach," she said with a smile.
She emphasized that the pageant fund-raising campaign was a group effort and that the contributions of the other contestants were notable.
"I felt they should get credit," she said. "The girl from Chi O's raised a lot."
Joy Benboe, the first runner-up and a member of Chi Omega sorority, raised $9,300.
Benboe was happy for Molly and said the competition was a friendly one.
"[Molly] was really refreshing and bright," she said, "a lot of fun, not only backstage, but on stage as well."