SHANNON STEWART, MISS JUNE 2000 Hey, everybody! My name's Shannon Stewart, Miss June 2000, and I'm what you'd call a small-town Southern belle. I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on May 25, 1978, and I graduated from St. Amant High School in 1996. I was popular with the guys in my school, but not too popular with the cheerleaders and dancers, because I modeled. I guess they must really love me now that I'm a Playmate. I live in a small, rural town—the kind of place where the people you meet in kindergarten usually end up being lifelong friends. It's also the kind of town where it doesn't take long for everybody to find out about an appearance in Playboy. I speak from experience here. When I say "small and rural," I mean just that—I live in a part of Louisiana where there are a whole lot of swamps on bayous. But I want y'all to know that I'm not a swamp girl. I don't even like mud. My mom started me in pageants when I was a baby, and I continued entering them until I was in the eighth grade. I won a lot of state titles, but the one I'm really proud of is Miss Baton Rouge. When the pageants stopped being fun, I quit. But I still did a lot of fashion shows and runway modeling. In fact modeling indirectly got me into Playboy. I was in Los Angeles when a job fell through, and a friend suggested I give the magazine a shot. I went into Studio West, and it all started from there. It was awesome to be chosen out of the thousands of women who submit their pictures. I had never posed nude before, so I was a little nervous for the first ten minutes or so. But everyone was so professional that after a little while, I just had a lot of fun and sort of forgot about being naked. Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't run around my hometown naked, but let's just say that going without clothes has definitely gotten easier. I'll let y'all in on a little secret: If Playboy hadn't come along, I would've given up modeling, gone to school to get my degree in animal behavior, and ended up working at a zoo. Y'see, I'm crazy about animals! I have two dogs: Ivy, my Maltese, and Andre, who's a boxer. A friend of mine from Las Vegas is going to let me bottle-feed his eight-week-old Siberian tiger for two months. Eventually I'd like to have lots of animals myself, but don't get me wrong—I want to get married and have kids, too. As far as a potential husband's concerned, I want to marry a good ol' boy who drives a truck, drinks beer, and spits tobacco. I don't want to be an actress, like a lot of Playmates, but I do want to continue modeling, do promotions for Playboy, travel the world, and meet all kinds of people. The great thing about being a Playmate is that I don't have to leave Baton Rouge to get bookings. In my spare time I love shopping, cooking, going to the river to jet ski, and hanging out with my man. I workout at the gym, and I'm pretty good on rollerblades. But I'm not coordinated, so please don¹t give me anything with a bat, a racket, or a ball. Everybody's telling me, "Shannon, don't forget where you come from." I don't think I could. I have teachers from the third grade who I still keep in contact with. My friends, neighbors, and the people I grew up with—I can't forget them. They're the ones who've supported me from way back when, and they're still around.