Contest: Mother’s Day, mother-daughter look-alikes

It'll hardly be the first time they're hearing it, but: Boy, do Dawn Eubanks-Cox and daughter Alissa Eubanks look alike.

It's that very resemblance that has earned the mother-and-daughter duo the top prize -- brunch, on us -- in the Review-Journal's Mother/Daughter Look-alike Extravaganza.

Our Mother's Day tribute attracted more than 70 entries, many of them strong contenders.

Oddly enough, Dawn and Alissa came close to not even entering our contest. Dawn says she learned about it only through a friend on a class reunion organizing committee.

Alissa, 17, accompanied Dawn to one of the committee's dinner meetings. When a colleague saw them walk in, Dawn recalls, "she said, 'Oh gosh, the Review-Journal is having a mother-daughter look-alike contest and you guys have got to win.' "

Dawn, 50, says Alissa was "probably 3 or 4 when people started telling her that she looked a lot like me. And, as we got older, people just couldn't believe it."

Once, when Alissa met Dawn at work, co-workers "had no idea that she was waiting for me," Dawn says, "but they said, 'She's got to be Dawn's daughter.' "

Alissa even has come across "a few pictures of me when I was little," Dawn says. "She'll see the background and say, 'I don't remember when we were there,' and I'll say, 'That's not you, that's me.' "

"It happened once,' Alissa interrupts with a laugh, in a tone of voice any mom knows all too well.

Dawn admits that there are days when she doesn't see the resemblance. "But if we both have our hair held back, or when we're both wearing the same hairstyle, it's pretty noticeable."

Alissa, a senior at Las Vegas Academy, models -- she also loves singing and dancing -- and "she's gorgeous," Dawn adds. "So when anybody says anything to me that I look like her, it's just completely a compliment. It actually makes my birthday a little less painful."

"Oooh, thanks," Alissa responds, genuinely touched. But, Alissa adds, "I do see it a little bit every day."

And, whenever somebody mentions that she looks like her mom, "I do take it as a compliment," Alissa says.

Thanks to all of the mothers and daughters who participated in the contest. Here's a look at some of them, and there are more online at www.lvrj.com/multimedia.

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.