The married couple George and Felicity return home to Santa Rita - his first vacation in 20 years. They are apalled that their son, Kevin, plans to marry Melinda in 14 days. Melinda is a Mexican-American waitress at the local Country Club, and her father hates to see her marry an 'anglo'. At the same time Kevin asks Dianne, a young defense attorney, to run against Judge Stinson at the upcoming election. Dianne's old 'flame', Mike Chulack, returns from 10 years in prison to the very deep dismay of her husband, Bruce. A criminal gets away from robbing a drugstore.

Tests from the autopsy proves Bruce regularly abused cocaine, and Dianne looses hope of ever finding any of the vanished money. However George and Felicity admit that they have handled Bruce's insurance money unsufficiently, and they fire their accountant. The technical investigations proves that he was not killed by his secretary, Joanna, as her bullet hit nothing but the wall. After some comic setbacks the police succeeds in tracing the person who faxes death threats to Dianne.

Dianne Benedict still has a debt to Bruce's creditors of $12.300, and Pete Dyson, an electric contractor, shows her a bill of $38.000 dollars. Her sister Kate seems to solve it by selling her Classic car to a mortuary, but the cautious Dianne lets Pete make a merger with Bruce's construction company. Dianne loses the election and Jim Stenson stays as judge, who inherits a lot of money from a presumably dead Emilie Howell. Prior to that Mrs. Howell has given Kate Benedict the assignment to keep a birthday party for her dog Pretty Boy.

Melinda decides to take part in a beauty pageant called 'Miss Friendly Santa Rita', and again her father is horrified.

Miss Friendly Santa Rita 1981 Lara Peterson is guest judge at the present beauty pageant. 'Cook Insurance' sponsors the event the 7th year in a row, so George is a judge, too, while Jim Stinson is the third. To his amusement Lara flirts with George, and Stinson is busy making passes on Melinda. Mike proposes to Dianne, and a rivalry between Kevin and Richard seems certain to occur, but Kate is intensely focused on finding Emily who is alive, indeed.

Emily May Howell's brother, dr. Ruben L. May, is found dead by Kate who suspects Judge Stinson to have murdered him. Mike wants to have lunch with Dianne, but Pete is more lucky and Mike is very jealous.