She was nicknamed “Flower Power” on the Playboy Web site and her picture was made a screensaver at her small private high school in Knoxville, Tenn. Her most embarrassing series of moments are the result of a Spring Break rush that still has people talking.

Mary Welch Fox is a CSU senior majoring in fashion design. This southern belle is also the secretive title bearer of Playboy’s Spring Break Girl of 2000.

While on Spring Break with her high school senior class, this 18-year-old student was approached on the beach by a “nice guy” who asked her if she wanted to take part in a swimsuit competition. Fueled by several shots of tequila and the encouragement of the likewise intoxicated members of her sunbathing crew, she agreed.

Fox said that she must have signed at least a hundred papers without reading a single one of them.

“I honestly had no idea what the competition was for,” Fox said. “Basically what happened was Playboy took advantage of a young 18-year-old girl.”

Posing in her flower bikini, Fox made it all the way to the final four. Oddly enough, she still had no idea that she was taking part in a competition for Playboy.

It wasn’t until she was named the winner of the glamorous title of Playboy’s Spring Break Girl of the Year that the buzz started to wear off.

“I kept telling everyone that we had to keep it a secret,” she said.

She won a gift certificate for a bar tab and a night out with the Playboy girls.

“I obviously I would have used the bar tab, had I been over 18,” she said. “And, as far as going out with the Playboy bunnies, well, it really didn’t interest me.”

But what happened in Panama City did not stay in Panama City, as it was supposed to. On her way back from the Florida, a friend called to tell her that he saw her on the Web site.

Her floral bikini was getting a lot of undesired attention, according to the administration at Webb School of Knoxville. Students and teachers were logging onto Playboy.com to vote for “Flower Power.”

One teacher had the photo up as his screensaver.

“I had to go to a meeting with all the teachers and the principal to talk about how my actions reflected poorly upon the school,” Fox said.

Since the school did not have Internet blocks up yet, anytime that any student or teachers logged onto Playboy.com, Fox got in trouble.

“My father was ready to move,” she said. “His face turned purple a number of times.”

Her mom cringed in embarrassment while helping to decorate for after-Prom. One of the other moms yelled, “There she is!” as Mrs. Fox watched her daughter at a club, dancing in Panama City. In addition, Extra and MTV caught wind of Miss Spring Break 2000 and she appeared on both shows.

“I had fun doing it, I guess at the time,” Fox said. “It gave a lot of people something to talk about.”

Fox described the event as hands down, the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to her and said that she would never agree to go through it again.

“Nobody will ever believe that I was clothed. I had a swimsuit on,” Fox said. “And, it was dry.”

Fox said that the events are to this day a big joke around Knoxville.

“People come up to me at the supermarket and whisper into my ear that they voted for me,” she said. “Even moms will do it.”

The Spring Break beauty said that Playboy did contact her to be in the magazine. She declined. She doesn’t even own a copy of the picture that was on the Internet.

Her boyfriend and his two roommates proudly announce not to worry, they still do.