For a limited time, junior and senior girls can dress like pageant queens for the bargain price of under 100 dollars. Religion teacher Rachel Harkins is selling the dresses and accessories she wore in pageants such as Miss America.

Harkins decided to sell her gowns and accessories from her pageant days to students because “there are things in there that I’m not going to wear again,” Harkins said. These dresses are much less expensive than most formal dresses, and they’re just in time for Junior Ring Dance and Senior Prom.

Harkins had already been selling the dresses on eBay and pageant websites when students showed her some of the dresses they were thinking of buying for Junior Ring Dance. “The dresses that they were showing me were so expensive, so I thought I’d share my dresses for a much cheaper price,” Harkins said.

Harkins has already sold two dresses to junior Maryana Khoma and senior Keke Lisbon, but she intends to keep everything on display in her classroom until Prom or when everything runs out. “Even the week of [a dance] they will be able to get something,” Harkins said. “I’m sure that some of the students will come in the week before a dance needing accessories.”

“I decided to look at her dresses because I saw a gorgeous blue one. The dress I bought didn’t work out for me,” Khoma said.

Harkins says another reason she wanted to sell her dresses is to be able to talk to her students about dressing with dignity. “There is a difference between dressing to the nines and looking sexy,” Harkins said. “You can look amazing in a dress without showing a ton of skin.”

This is the first time Harkins has sold her dresses to students and is pleased with how it is going, but she did not always rent and sell her dresses. “There was a time when I would barely let people borrow them because they were so special to me,” Harkins said.

Harkins will continue to sell her dresses until April 27, the day before prom.

Ashley Beyer is a Lifestyles Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.