CHRISTIANSBURG -- Diane Yopp says she's at that age where her brain says, "Go, go, go!"

But her body says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

"My brain doesn't think I'm 62, but my body tells me I am," she said.

The arthritis in her hands and feet isn't stopping this grandmother of five from giving the Ms. Virginia Senior America Pageant another shot.

"She decided she would do it one more time," said Wendy Pinhey, a former contestant and organizer of this year's pageant. Pinhey said the pageant, for women 60 and older, promotes the message that aging is not something to be feared.

"This is a time of life when women can seek things out, step out of that box and break the stereotyping that women reaching a certain age are considered over the hill," Pinhey wrote in an e-mail.

Yopp, who owns Diane's Hair Center in downtown Christiansburg, was one of six contestants in last year's pageant in Oakton. Brenda Brokaw of Alexandria, a former school psychologist, was the winner. The 60-year-old Brokaw participated in the national Ms. Senior America Pageant and spent the past year touring Virginia with the message that age should not stop people from staying active.

Yopp is one of seven contestants vying for this year's state title. The pageant will be May 30 in Falls Church.

While Yopp took an entourage of 28 -- including family, friends, beauty shop customers and members of her church -- to cheer for her and the other contestants at last year's event, she said she won't have such a large supporting cast this go-round.

"This year it's going to be a little different. It's going to be on a Friday morning," she said. "My husband is going."

Yopp said her husband, David, is 100 percent supportive of her beauty pageant hobby.

Her family is supportive, too.

"She has helped my mother, my cousin and I all these years," said Yopp's 15-year-old granddaughter, Whitney Parker. "I've done them [pageants] since I was a baby."

Parker has won so many pageants over the years that she has lost count of the number. She and her grandmother even appeared in a pageant together recently. They were in the Sunburst Pageant, showcasing girls and women from Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

In the Ms. Virginia Senior America Pageant, Yopp will compete in evening gown, talent and interview segments. She said she will sing a gospel song "The Only Thing That Matters," featuring her husband's guitar accompaniment. In an "inner beauty" segment during which contestants share their philosophy of life, she plans to use the same comments she made in last year's pageant that life should be lived to the fullest and people should put their faith in God.

"I feel like the Lord gave me that," she said of her speech. "There's no need to change it."

While Yopp did not place in last year's event, she said, she decided to enter again because the experience was fun and challenging.

"I enjoyed it. I really did," she said. "I didn't place, but I was pleased with how I did."

Yopp said her secret to aging happily is to continue stretching her boundaries.

She has participated in volunteer work, taken up amateur photography and, most recently, started taking organ lessons. Although she had hoped to accompany herself on organ while singing in this year's pageant, she said she's not yet coordinated enough for that.

"I try to do something new every year," she said.