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"Don't ever use duct tape to create bigger cleavage," warns fun and funny Mrs. World 2002, Nicole Brink. "I did it once and took my skin off! Now I just use clear packing tape that you can get at Walgreen's," confides the bubbly brunette.

In a televised pageant that was seen worldwide on the PAX network, the 27-year-old Mrs. America was crowned Mrs. World on Dec. 19 in Las Vegas, beating out a global bevy of beauties from 37 other countries.

Her nail polish hadn't even had time to chip from her Mrs. America crowning just months before in Honolulu. As Mrs. Indiana-America 2001, the 5-foot-5-inch beauty wore a dress that her mother hand-beaded for her when she was chosen from the field of 51 contestants.

David Marmel, president and founder of the Mrs. America and Mrs. World competitions, exclaims, "Who said one doesn't get a second chance to make a first impression? Nicole did — and she did!"

"We're all very proud of her! She's terrific!" adds Bob Mazza, vice president of marketing at Marmel Entertainment in Santa Monica, Calif.

What's her secret? Kristianna Fullhart-Nichols, 1992's Mrs. America, says she knows why. "Nicole has the confidence to be herself. Every once in a while you meet someone who sparkles. Nicole radiates.

She was shocked when she won. I would have been shocked if she hadn't.

"'Nic' is intelligent, witty and naturally beautiful," says Fullhart-Nichols, a former WTHR (Channel 13) talk show host who now lives in Vail, Colo. "She has an incredible sense of style, elegance and, most importantly, a humble heart. Nicole Brink is not just pretty. She is pretty amazing!"

Eileen Taylor, the ecstatic state director for the Mrs. Indiana-America Pageant, says, "She won the Mrs. World Pageant with the winning formula that begins with our Indiana team of Mrs. Indiana-America Pageant veterans: Julie DiLorenzo (2000), Stephanie Wells (1999), Debra Bunt (1998), myself (1992), and Kristianna Nichols (1991). We were all there in Las Vegas to support Nicole. She was the most elegant, classy and poised contestant."

Nicole didn't feel poised when last year's Mrs. World, India's Aditi Govitrikar, placed the crown on her head. "She didn't have bobby pins and the crown kept flopping. I had to hang on to it to keep it from falling off while I was walking," says the unflappable beauty with a smile as white as arctic ice in sunshine.

It's not hard to understand why she won the Crest Whitestrips Best Smile Award during the competition. (Crest was one of the pageant's sponsors, along with the Las Vegas Hilton, Carol Wior Swimsuit, LeVian Jewelry, and Proctor & Gamble.) "I drink everything through a colored straw," she says, sharing another beauty trick of the pageant trade.

And she doesn't gulp when asked about the ugly world of beauty pageants. "Yes, girls have cosmetic surgery and it's not just one kind of surgery. Some get breast implants. Some get liposuction. And some get lip injections. You just kind of know. No one brags about it. No one says, 'Hey, look what I've had done," she exclaims.

"I'm sure there are anorexics and bulimics because many girls in pageants say that eating disorders' awareness is their platform because they've been through it. My platform has either been AIDS awareness or breast cancer awareness because my mother had bilateral mastectomies when she was 36," she candidly reveals.

As a commitment to pageant sponsor Proctor & Gamble's Actonel, Nicole joins Florence Henderson as a Fracture Fighter spokeswoman for the bone disease osteoporosis.

Nicole's nine years of ballet is in her favor to prevent osteoporosis, which is a serious health issue facing women. She didn't have to worry about talent competitions in the Mrs. America or Mrs. World pageants, because there is no talent division. "It's all based on thirds: one-third interview; one-third evening gown; and one-third swimsuit. I cannot stand the swimsuit portion," she says like a true feminist. "But I don't think it will be abolished because it brings in big television ratings."

While the world is now her stage, Nicole remembers wanting to be a beauty queen ever since she was a little girl. Her love of fashion and playing dress-up were apparent at an early age when her mother caught her dyeing her Barbie dolls' hair with food coloring. "As a little kid, I was hooked on the Miss USA pageant because the dresses were so sparkly. I fantasized about being Miss USA and I would dress up in oversize shoes and dresses, wearing the tiara my mom bought me. I would look in the mirror and practice my wave. I was definitely a girly-girl!"

Hoosier upbringing
She was born Nicole Marie Llewellyn on Oct. 25, 1974, in East Chicago to surgical technologist Terese and Lowell, Ind., small business owner Glen Llewellyn. They divorced when she was 22 months old.

When Nicole was 5, she and her mother moved to Munster when Terese married automotive mechanic George Becchino, who is now a manager for Pep Boys Automotive. Terese and George became the parents of Nicole's half-sisters, Erica, now 18 years old, and 16-year-old Brooke. "Both of my sisters do pageants. Erica won Miss Indiana Teen American United States," brags Nicole. "And Brooke was just in the Miss Indiana Teen USA. Out of 80 girls, she was in the top 12!"

Terese claims she never has been a stage door mother. "I grew up on a farm and never knew that pageants existed. But even if I had, it would have never happened because we had very little money," she says. "Our interest began when Nikki was 9 years old and went to the John Robert Powers Modeling and Finishing School in Chicago. A talent agent told me that she felt Nicole had possibilities for print work.

"After we had composite pictures made and her name was circulated, info started coming in the mail. The first pageant she entered was the 1986 Little Miss Junior America Pageant where she won the title of Little Miss Junior Indiana. That's when her career of pageants began and the rest is history," says Becchino, who calls pageantry an expensive sport.

With only one semester of home economics under her belt, Becchino learned how to make costumes for her daughter. "Buying evening gowns was so expensive. I remember the year that she won the teen pageant; I had to make payments on her gown. It worked out because that way Dad never knew the true price!" says the devoted mother who sewed crystals on the gown Nicole wore for both Mrs. America and Mrs. World.

"It's my favorite dress ever because my mom pretty much made it. My mom is my best friend," proclaims Nicole, who yearned to be on the stage at an early age. "But she really didn't want me doing pageants because she thought I was too young. Eventually, she went along with me when I would cry, 'Please! Please! I want to wear a pretty dress,' " she says, imitating her own whining.

Nicole scoffs at any comparison to Jon-Benet Ramsey, the pretty little girl who has been called a victim of parents bent on pageant wins at all costs, an innocent toddler shrouded and sexualized by beauty queen makeup.

Disgusted, Nicole says, "I can't identify with her and I would never do that to my daughter. But kiddie pageants are a huge business. They are completely different worlds than the Teen and Miss pageants. When they showed Jon-Benet in those kiddie pageants, I couldn't believe that she was 5 years old. I was 8 years old when I was in my first beauty pageant and my mom would only let me wear lip-gloss. No makeup. She curled my hair and that was it."

She was a 17-year-old senior and captain of the Munster High School cheerleading squad when she was crowned Miss Indiana-Teen USA. "I made the top 10 in the Miss Indiana-Teen USA and got to compete in the evening gown competition," Nicole reminisces. The coveted evening gown her mother hand-beaded was in stark contrast to the Subway uniform she also had hanging in her closet. "I was a Subway sandwich artist for two years in high school. I also worked at The Limited," says the energetic hard worker.

Lone Star training
The 1993 Munster High School graduate went on to Vincennes University where she majored in surgical technology, graduating in 1996. A year later, she won Miss Indiana. When she went on that year to the Miss USA contest, she was crushed not to have made the top 10. That led the 23-year-old to make an expensive, crucial decision. She was "on the brink" with her pageant career. She decided it was time to see Julie Phillips, the owner of Pageant Consultants in Sugarland, Texas.

"Texas girls are just huge pageant queens. Oh my gosh, they breed girls down there to be pageant girls," roars Nicole with her Texas-sized laugh. "Pageants, football and cheerleaders are huge in Texas. It's a pageant state. I've always wanted to go into a national pageant as Miss Texas. With all the other states there, the one girl they look at is Miss Texas because they are so well trained. They have the best coaches in Texas and they have the best wardrobes there.

"It was my fourth year in Indiana and I was tired of messing around. I couldn't get into the top five because I couldn't crack my little teen image. I looked young and I needed to look mature. Going from a Teen to a Miss pageant is extremely hard because they beat into your head for so long that they need teen. They need cute. They need bubble gum-popping, cute teen. When you get into the Miss pageant, you age-out of the Teen into the Miss where they want sophistication and class.

"In two days, I spent $7,000 for coaching on swimsuit, evening gown, interview, clothes, hair, makeup — it's an industry. People don't realize how large of an industry. But it was worth it. Not only because I won but because I had made such a dramatic turn from the year before.

"I had made such a dramatic turnaround that people were whispering, 'What happened to her? She must have gone to Texas!' " she says, laughing and piling up her hair on top of her head with her fingers. "I was still me, but the package was different. I had a different persona, a different look and a different style." The glamorous new Nicole was crowned Miss Indiana-USA in 1998.

All the while, she was holding down two jobs and taking additional science courses at IUPUI. During the day she worked at St. Vincent Hospital as a surgical technologist. At night she was a server at the Castleton fondue restaurant, The Melting Pot. "I was too busy to have a boyfriend," she jests.

"But my friend, Meredith LeGrand, soon changed that. We met in an anatomy lab at IUPUI and hit it off immediately because she was involved in the Miss Indiana pageant for Miss America and I was involved in the USA system. She wanted to fix me up with a fourth-year medical student named Chad Brink. I kept putting her off and finally she threatened to never speak to me again if I didn't go out with him. I met him and Ñ dang Ñ I liked him!" she says with eyes that sparkle like her new crown.

The two dated for 19 months before getting married Aug. 26, 2000, in the Chapel of the Resurrection at his alma mater, Valparaiso University. Both her father and stepfather walked her down the aisle. "I call them both Dad, so I refused to pick one or the other," says the sensitive and loving daughter. But it was her husband who escorted her onstage during the evening gown competition at the Mrs. America Pageant, which was held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. She recalls, "Right before we went on stage, Chad asked, 'Do I have to smile the whole time?' I assured him that he had to. Poor thing, he smiled the whole time and when we got off stage I said, 'You can quit smiling now!' "

The third-year anesthesiology resident at Indiana University Medical Center said, "It hurts. How do you guys do it for so long?" But he's all smiles at the reaction he has gotten at the hospital since she was crowned.

"People say, 'Are you the one whose wife is Mrs. World?' I say 'Yes.' And then they say, 'Why in the world did she pick you?' " the affable Centralia, Ill., native says, laughing.

His bedside manner is also admirable. "He is so good to me," Nicole says, batting her perfectly curled eyelashes. "He gave me a greeting card the night before the Mrs. World competition that said, 'No matter if you're Mrs. World or Mrs. America, you will always be Mrs. Chad Brink.' "

The two had fun flying back to Indianapolis when the flight attendant announced, "We have a treat for all the passengers. Mrs. World and her husband are on the plane. She represented America and won the whole thing!"

"People cheered, clapped, and yelled," says Nicole, who autographed photos for her fellow passengers while holding her crown on her lap.

When she's not jetting off to make global promotional appearances, she trades in rhinestones and sequins for surgical scrubs. Nicole continues to hold down two jobs. "I'm a spinal fusion clinical specialist for Rapp Medical and I'm also a surgical technologist in the surgery unit at St. Vincent Hospital."

The world is hers. Their Eagle Creek home has a pageant room that houses her many crowns, tiaras and sashes. The Brinks zip around the neighborhood in his and hers Vespa scooters that were part of the prizes she won as Mrs. America. When you combine those prizes with her Mrs. World wins, her take is impressive: a 2001 silver Hyundai, a luxury condo vacation from Hilton Grand Vacations, $35,000 worth of jewelry from New York's House of LeVian and $10,000 from Actonel.

While Nicole Brink turns heads, her head is not turned. And she can thank her grandmother for that. "When I won my first pageant, my grandmother Bruckman asked, 'You're going to stay sweet, right?' Grandma now has Alzheimer's and she doesn't talk anymore. But I think she recognizes me when I go see her. She smiles at me," Nicole says fighting back tears.

Grandma Bruckman probably recognizes that "pretty is as pretty does." Nicole Brink doesn't need a spotlight. Her warm, caring personality lights up a room