Shandi Finnessey, Miss USA Becomes Miss UBT

BY DEKE CASTLEMAN

If you’ve seen even one episode of “The Ultimate Blackjack Tour” on CBS, you’ve noticed the five-foot-ten 125-pound Shandi Finnessey. She’s the statuesque, stunning, yet wholesome-looking blond who co-hosted the first season of the tournament-blackjack show with Playboy Playmate Nikki Ziering. In season two, though, it’s all-Shandi all-the-time on the UBT. And the blackjack beauty appears poised to reach the pinnacle of TV-gambling notoriety that’s been reached only by the World Poker Tour’s super-hostess Shana Hyatt.

From Braces To Beauty Pageants
Shandi, now 28, comes from Florrisant, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, where she grew up the youngest of four children and the only girl. Having three older brothers, she says, made her one of the guys. “I’m a tomboy at heart. I can do most things that a guy can, and some things even better! I’m not afraid to get down and dirty and I love all physical sports, especially wrestling.”
As a kid, she spent her vacations in Deering, North Dakota, population 100, where her family is from originally. She loved both worlds: the excitement of St. Louis during the school year and the tranquility of farm country during the summer. She helped out on the farm and feels right at home on a big tractor.
Shandi had more than her share of the typical awkward adolescence, to the extent that she was teased in high school due, surprisingly, to her appearance. “I looked much different in those days than how you see me now. I had a mullet, tinted glasses, acne, and braces, and I was teased so much that it was difficult to focus on my studies. It got so bad that I went to my parents and said, ‘I’m not getting the education that I think I need. I want to move to a smaller school.’ I actually transferred to an all-girls school. The contacts went in, the hair grew out, the braces came off, and I started entering beauty pageants when I was seventeen. It was just a fun hobby at that time.”
Shandi finished high school in 1996, then attended Lindenwood University, a liberal-arts college in St. Charles, Missouri. She graduated with honors in 1999 with a degree in psychology, then pursued a Masters degree in counseling. But before she completed her graduate studies, beauty pageants turned into more than a hobby.
“I didn’t actually see the pageants as a career move until I was about twenty-four,” she says.
After getting serious about it, she won the title of Miss St. Louis Metro, which sent her to the Miss Missouri America 2002 competition. She won. Then it was on to the 2002 Miss America pageant held in Atlantic City, where she took the evening-gown preliminary award. A year later, she competed for the Miss Missouri USA title. She won. That sent her to the 2004 Miss USA competition in the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. Televised live in front of 13 million people, Shandi Finnessey was crowned Miss USA. She was the first Miss Missouri to take the national title.

“I dedicated an entire year to preparing for the Miss USA 2004 pageant. I gave a hundred percent of myself to achieve my goal. I worked out for five hours a day, seven days a week, doing high repetitions of low weights for muscle definition and going on an intense protein diet. I ate six times a day–five or six chicken breasts, a can of tuna, a whole head of romaine lettuce, snow peas, grapefruit, and as many egg whites as I could consume.”
When she was named Miss USA, Shandi says, “It was truly the American Dream, where if you work hard enough for something, you can achieve it. Having the crown placed on my head was one of the best feelings a person can ever have.”

The Life of Miss USA
“I moved into one of Donald Trump’s apartments in New York City with two new roommates: Miss Teen USA, Tami Ferrell, and Miss Universe, Amelia Vega. Talk about one great bachelorette pad! What guy wouldn’t die to hang out_in that apartment? When we had any free time we were like any other girlfriends. We rented movies, ate pizza, and had pillow fights. I remember one time we actually had a cupcake fight.”
Shandi describes her year wearing the Miss USA crown as “nothing short of incredible.” First and foremost, representing the title is definitely a job. She typically worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week, including weekends and holidays. She says, “I traveled the world, visiting places that included Ecuador, Thailand, Korea, Germany, St. Maarten, even Cuba. I attended some amazing events, such as meeting the Princess of Thailand, hosting part of the Presidential Inauguration, and touring with the USO and Wayne Newton.”
She was also quite the celebrity in her hometown and state. “The city of Florissant gave me a huge welcome-home party and even put up a big sign when you enter the city that says, ‘Welcome to Florissant– Home of Miss USA 2004, Shandi Finnessey.’ The state of Missouri put up similar signs on the major freeways: ‘You are now entering Missouri–Home of Miss USA 2004, Shandi Finnessey.’”
The most rewarding part of being Miss USA was becoming the national spokesperson for breast and ovarian cancer. “Through- out my year, I helped raise more than thirty-million dollars for breast cancer research,” she says proudly.

Opening Doors
“I always saw beauty pageants as an opportunity to open many doorways and create more choices for myself,” Shandi explains, and since winning the Miss USA title, that’s exactly what has happened.

She went on to compete for Miss Universe in Quito, Ecuador, in 2004 and finished First Runner Up to Jennifer Hawkins, Miss Australia.

She’s has modeled for Dillard’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Anheuser Busch, among many others. She was a color commentator for the Rose Bowl 2005 Parade, “Behind the Scenes Miss USA 2005,” the Miss Universe 2006 competition, and the Fox Network’s “Live New Year’s Eve” broadcast in 2006. She’s been a guest on the “Passions” soap opera, “The Apprentice,” and “Regis and Kelly.”
She currently co-hosts “Lingo,” a word-guessing game and the highest-rated game show on GSN, with Chuck Woolery; she also hosts the late-night live game show “Playmania,” also on GSN.
And, of course, Shandi co-hosted the first season of the UBT after being selected from a pool of hundreds of applicants.
“We did a huge casting call in L.A.,” says Houston Curtis, co-producer of the “Ultimate Blackjack Tour.” “We were looking for someone who was beautiful, intelligent, charismatic, and endearing. We were flooded with hopefuls. We got down to ten girls, then narrowed it down to five. Then, Shandi walked in the door and we knew immediately that she was the one.”
Curtis emphasizes that Shandi was anything but the “typical blond bombshell.” He says, “She’s stunning, of course, but it goes beyond the physical. She’s real; there’s nothing phony about her. She’s approachable. She’s professional and enthusiastic and she hosts the second season of the ‘UBT’ solo. But Shandi’s not only going to have a big run with the ‘UBT,” she’s going to have a huge career in the entertainment business.”
“I love working on the UBT,” Shandi says. “I get to hang out with all the blackjack and poker professionals. I never used to gamble, but when you spend time with the pros, it gets in your blood. The next thing you know, you’re sitting at the tables in Las Vegas with the big boys.
“Working on the UBT definitely improved my blackjack game. I also learned a few things about poker. In fact, the first time I ever played poker, after learning from the pros, I took everyone’s money. It was totally luck, though,” Shandi admits. “I always got the card I needed on the river.”
She thinks Elimination Blackjack is “sexy,” thanks to the strong elements of strategy. She finds the necessity of keeping an eye on everyone else’s chip count especially stimulating.
When asked who her favorite player is, she says, “Ken Einiger is probably my favorite guy. I always tease him about his hair and that bright yellow jacket he wears. Our nickname for him is ‘Bumble Bee.’”
Ken says Shandi has come a long way fast. “When she began, Shandi wasn’t schooled in the intricacies of Elimination Blackjack, and some of her interviews were consequently superficial. But now she watches the games and even plays on occasion, so she knows what to say, and what to ask someone who’s just come off a table after being eliminated. It takes a bit of finesse.”

Shandi Today
Shandi insists that all the awards and titles are really just stopping spots on the way to her ultimate destination: “Marrying Mr. Right and having a wonderful family with lots of rescued pets.”
But Mr. Right has some serious competition for Shandi Finnessey’s time. She plays classical and modern piano and violin, but she says one of the achievements of which she’s most proud was publishing a children’s book called The Furrtails, about a family of rabbits with varying abilities. “The theme of the book is that we all have strengths and weaknesses. They don’t make one person better or worse than another; they just make people unique and different.”
And that’s Shandi’s passion and cause: For years she’s been dedicated to promoting the inclusion of people with mental challenges, such as mental retardation and Down Syndrome. She’s spent much of her time–“I traveled fifty-thousand miles in Missouri alone,” she says–working with elementary-school children. Using The Furrtails as her visual aid and discussion stimulator, she encourages young students to include those who are “different” in some way, and teaches them how.
“I’ve been trying to raise awareness, because I think the unknown is what scares people so much. They don’t know how to interact with someone with a disability– someone who’s different from them. If children are exposed to different situations, different people, and different environments, I believe that they’re more accepting in the long run.”
Today, Shandi is busy working on another children’s book and her memoir, along with shooting “Lingo” and “Playmania” for GSN, the “UBT” for CBS, and the pre-Oscar show for TV Guide.
The big news, however, is her appearance on the upcoming season of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.” “I’ll be one of the contestants, dancing each week for votes, trying to not be eliminated! Any free time I have before or after shooting the different shows is spent practicing for ‘Dancing.’ Have you watched the show?” she asks. “The competition is ferocious. This will be a tough one to take down.”
Given her track record, however, who’d bet against it?