MARK WAITE / PVT Lindsey-Joy Zangler of Pahrump and her mom, Shawn Zangler, show the award the youngster earned at an international modeling and talent association competition in New York City. Advertisement

Second graders at Mount Charleston Elementary School might recognize one of their new classmates this fall, 7 year-old Lindsey Joy Zangler, who is pictured gyrating with a Hula Hoop in the Mountains Edge television commercials.

Lindsey is the daughter of John and Shawn Zangler, who moved from Las Vegas to Pahrump in July. Lindsey just returned from an International Model and Talent Competition in New York City, where she took third runner-up in a TV beauty commercial and fourth runner-up in runway modeling.

The Zanglers enrolled Lindsey in the John Robert Powers modeling school in Las Vegas for three years of Saturday lessons.

Shawn Zangler said the top 3 percent were allowed to audition for the New York show, with top talent scouts in the audience. Her mother said 3,000 children competed in the talent show.

"I had to do a sitcom and a soapcom. There are these commercials, you get to pick one," Lindsey said. "I was really nervous."

Lindsey demonstrated how she convincingly pitched "no tears, no tangle" shampoo for the beauty commercial. That was supplemented by a commercial for Hershey mint chocolate with the jingle, "I love the taste of mint and chocolate together."

While in the Big Apple, the Zanglers visited ground zero at the World Trade Center site, took a cruise around the Statue of Liberty and rode a horse-drawn carriage around Central Park.

"It was a lot of fun. Every day it was really busy at everything," Lindsey said.

Shawn Zangler said she was sold on marketing her daughter for modeling and acting after she won a baby pageant at four months old in 1999.

"She naturally would show off anyway and she always took good pictures. Everybody said, 'You should do something with her, you should do something with her,'" Shawn Zangler said.

By ages 3 and 4, when her hair was really blonde, people said she looked just like JonBenet Ramsey, the famous child beauty queen from Boulder, Colo., who was killed at age 6, an incident that soured many people on child beauty pageants.

John Zangler said that incident influenced their decisions.

"I think we slowed down the process. We didn't jump in and go overboard. We let her take the classes. This New York trip, she could've gone the first year. But we decided, no, we'd let her take the classes and decide if the interest is still there," he said.

Photos from the New York show portray Lindsey, No. 5727, modeling fashionable dress clothes as well as a swimsuit competition and jeans competition.

"All her competition clothes we bought, and believe it or not, it was Wal-Mart and Burlington Coat Factory. We didn't go to all these expensive malls," Shawn Zangler said.

Lindsey received sponsorships from Saturn of Henderson and a local dentist to help pay the costs. The talent show costs were also deducted as a business expense, the Zanglers said.

Lindsey already auditioned for "That's So Raven," a show on The Disney Channel and for a John Stamos sitcom, which unfortunately wasn't picked up by the network, her mother said. She already had a contract to model Guess shoes. Over the Labor Day weekend she modeled at the Asian Pacific Expo at the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas in age-appropriate fashion.

The acting will be more of a challenge for Lindsey as she will be required to rehearse her lines. Lindsey has an agent, Jackie Lewis of the Diverse Talent Agency, while Kim Flowers is her manager.

At her agent's suggestion, the Zanglers plan to travel to Los Angeles in January to be ready for pilot season, when pilots for possible television shows are filmed. If Lindsey gets picked for a role, it could mean $15,000 per week, her mother said.

The advertisement for Mountains Edge usually airs on the Fox TV news at 10 p.m. Lindsey recalls the filming took over five hours on the playground of a Las Vegas school that was about to be closed. Her mother suggested Lindsey bring a Hula Hoop as a prop, an idea endorsed by the director.

"I would like to be an actress and a model," Lindsey said. "I would like to go on a Lindsey Lohan movie."