Meet Miss Stephanie Micheals – One of Maryland’s Longest performing Queens

Published in the April-June 2026 Edition
By Adam Romanik

Recently I sat down with Miss Stephanie Micheals, one of Maryland’s longest performing drag queens. I also had the honor of recently attending Stephanie’s 65^th birthday celebration at The Lodge and found that she been performing for almost 50 years. Stephanie has held over 100 titles in that time period including Miss Wisconsin USA, Miss Statecoach, Miss Zippers, Miss Hagerstown Pride Emeritus, Miss Keystone State Gay Rodeo 2017, Miss Dear Park Lodge in 1989 and Miss Maryland America 2012 to name a few.

Miss Stephanie was born in Harrisonburg, VA in February 1961. Her parents were cattle farmers raising Hereford beef cattle on a farm in Mount Jackson, VA. During Stephanie’s childhood, she helped on the farm and learned about hard work. In that area of Virginia, there was an annual pageant called the woman-less beauty contest. This was a pageant where straight men would dress up as a fundraiser for the local fire company. Stephanie competed annually and won 4 times. After the 4^th win Stephanie was banned from running again. This was the start of her drag career.

When Stephanie was 23, she moved to Winchester, VA to start to find her own roots. She lived in Winchester for 20 years and during that time worked for JCPenney in marketing as well as a hair stylist. During this time, Stephanie got involved with the local drag community at Deer Park Lodge in Boonsboro, MD. In 1989, after trying 6 times, she won the title of Miss Dear Park Lodge. Of all of the titles held, this one was the most meaningful because it was the first title won.

My first experience meeting Stephanie Micheals was at The Pink Lizard in Harrisburg, PA sometime in the winter of 2002 at a drag show. The Pink Lizard regularly put on monthly drag shows and Stephanie was always one of the favorite performers. The one thing that I will never forget when seeing Stephanie for the first time was that there was always at least one performance of the show that was hilarious and comical and made you want to make sure that you came back next month. I also experienced Stephanie perform at many other places including bars in Williamsport, PA, Central PA Pride Fest, and others where she was always a favorite.

In 2015 after I founded the Keystone State Gay Rodeo Association and we planned our first rodeo, Stephanie was the first in line to help with fundraisers and to be the first Miss Keystone State Gay Rodeo. Our first rodeo in June 2017 was a very busy weekend, but one of the things that I will never forget is Stephanie selling 50/50 tickets each day and her comical style to get folks to purchase them helping raise almost $1,000 between both days of the rodeo. One of the questions I asked Stephanie during our interview was how much do you think that you have raised for community organizations and causes during your career. Her answer probably was over $100,000.

For the past 15 years Stephanie has called Hagerstown, MD home. Her and her husband James own a house that used to be a church and half of the first floor of the house is the drag room. During our interview Stephanie gave me a tour of the drag room. Racks of clothing, shoes, wigs and even several Craftsmen toolboxes of Jewelry.

As we were finishing our Interview, I asked Stephanie, what is your recommendation for anyone that wants to get into drag. Her response is simply this, “Make a career out of it. If you only want to do it one time, then forget about it. You have to have the will to want to do it, and then you’ll need get help to get that. Buy what you can afford to get. Get in a spotlight show for amateurs and get booked into Pride shows”.

Stephanie still performs regularly at The Lodge in Boonsboro. In the July edition, we will be spotlighting The Lodge, one of Maryland’s most unique bars. For more information about the Lodge or to see the full schedule of events going on there including regular drag shows, visit: thelodgemd.com