Meet Valerie Mason, our Miss September 2008. She’s tall – 5’7” – and part Cherokee, with dark hair and eyes and a natural tan. “I’m a Southern girl,” she says. “I’m from Louisiana, but I live in Austin, Texas. I do miss it – my family, and all that Cajun food – but I make do with the best Mexican north of the border.” She’s a sight for sore eyes – or, as it happens, sore ears. You hear Valerie before you see her, driving in her car, windows down, The Eagles at full volume. “They’re my favorite band,” she says. “I love music from the seventies and eighties – Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, that kind of thing. But my friends rag on me.” She has eclectic tastes in other things, too – she loves four-wheeling, she collects vintage clothes and shoes, and she’s a snake charmer to boot. “The boa constrictor in my pictorial is my pet, Mitch,” she says, laughing. Valerie had never modeled before, but she was a big fan of The Girls Next Door, and like so many before her, she figured, why not? She sent her photos to Holly Madison on MySpace – who knows a Playmate when she sees one – and Holly invited her to test at Studio West. “They filmed my test for an episode of The Girls Next Door,” she says. “I never thought I would be on the show, but when I saw it, there I was – in front of the camera, meeting Hef and the girls.” She moved to the Bunny House, down the street from the Mansion, and she started booking the rest of the time lounging at the Grotto, going to some of LA’s best parties, and when she got home, ordering room service. “The kitchen is open 24/7,” she says. “You can have whatever you want. It was the best summer of my life.”