When 43 members of the Sisterhood of Miss North Carolina gathered in Raleigh for the 75th anniversary of the Miss North Carolina pageant, it was a celebration of achievement as well as comeliness.
Newly crowned Arlie Honeycutt joins the Sisterhood of 57 Miss North Carolinas during
the 75th anniversary celebration. Lenn Long Photography
The eldest among them, and still stunning, was Trudy Riley Kearney of Wilson. The pageant has changed greatly since she walked across the stage to be crowned Miss North Carolina in 1946; however, it was cash, not a scholarship, that was part of her dowry.
Trudy Riley Kearny ’46, still stunning in her eighties, was the oldest Miss North Carolina attending the 75th anniversary. Trudy in Miss America Boardwalk Parade in 1946.
At the time higher education was not a customary pursuit for young women. (Nationally only 76,000 women received a college degree in 1945.) When the men came marching home from the Great War, women resigned from their wartime jobs to become wives and mothers again, the sought-after status for most women of that generation.
The pageant changed dramatically in 1949 when Nancy Lee Yelverton of Rocky Mount received the first designated scholarship. It also changed the goals of the young women vying to wear the crown.
Scintillating Seniors at Governor’s Mansion:
Front Row: Maria Beale Fletcher (Miss NC ’61 and Miss America 1961); Barbara Harris
(’52); Trudy Riley (’46); 2nd Row: Ann Herring (’60), Jeanne Swanner Robertson (’63),
Patsy Johnson (’69), Sharon Finch Van Vechten (’64), and Elaine Herndon (’57).
Larry Parker, photographer.
Miss North Carolina is a powerful title. The experience of representing the state, both at home and abroad, emboldens the young women who win the honor. When asked what effect it had had on their lives, most responded as did Jennifer Smith Vaden Barth (’91) from Mount Airy. Now a YouTube official in Los Angeles, she wrote: “It made me who I am… (with) a multi-faceted education, communication skills and confidence to do anything because of the role the entire program played in my life.”
Maria Beale Fetcher (’61) the only Miss North Carolina to be crowned Miss America,
flew in from Las Vegas for 75th anniversary celebrations. She poses here with Ken
Howard, History Museum Director, and Jeanne Swanner Robertson (’63).
Lenn Long Photography
Many Miss North Carolinas are high achievers in their senior years, like Jeanne Swanson Robertson (’63) of Burlington, one of the most popular public speakers in the nation. She played the ukelele interspersed with humor as her contest talent and “I found I could make people laugh.” She made 500 speeches as Miss North Carolina which launched her 48-year public speaking career.
Another example is Sharon Finch Van Vechten ’64 from Thomasville, who won for her performance in dance. A knee injury interrupted her studies at the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College, but “Being Miss North Carolina provided me access to reporters and newsrooms across the state which became the inspiration for my transition to journalism at UNC” and the founding of her very successful Van Vechten marketing agency in Chapel Hill.
Sharon Finch ’64 was welcomed home to Thomasville by a crowd of 8000. A highlight of her Miss North Carolina experience was shooting a Toni commercial in New York City, with Beth Myerson and Miss America Vonda Van Dyke.
David Clegg, president of the board of Sister-hood of Miss North Carolina, has worked with pageants on state and local levels for 36 years. He was nine years old in 1965 when he was smitten by Penelope Clark, riding by in a blood-red Oldsmobile Toronada in his hometown, Sanford, and her kindness when he met her.
Penelope Clark Kilpatrick ’65 today is a mainstay of the non-profit California Fresh Catering in Winston-Salem. All the profits go to the Foundation for Purposeful Living which awards grants to charities around the world.
When the Sisterhood board realized the pageant’s 75th anniversary was approaching, it collaborated with the North Carolina Museum of History to mount an exhibit of crowns, dresses and other memorabilia spanning the decades. It was on display in Raleigh for appreciative crowds through November.
Passers-by lined the streets when Lu Long Ogburn (’51), right, of Smithfield, NC and
Barbara Ann Harris Richmond (’52) of Salisbury, NC drove by in the pageant’s red
convertible. Lu Long was featured on the cover of Our State magazine during her reign.
Barbara Ann had to sandwich Miss North Carolina appearances between her music
classes at Wilson public schools where she was a first-year teacher.
American Beauties Vie for Scholarships
The Miss America competition, now the Miss America Scholarship Pageant, has provided opportunities for more than 27,000 women in the United States and awarded $4 million in scholarship funds. It’s a noble development for an event that began as a marketing tool for Atlantic City businesses.
The Businessmen’s League at the seaside resort, eager to keep tourists on the boardwalk past Labor Day, organized a Fall Frolic on September 25, 1920. The most popular event was a parade of young women being pushed in rolling chairs along the Boardwalk.
Meanwhile, East Coast newspapers had begun sponsoring local beauty pageants with judging based on photographs. The League invited the newspaper contest winners to compete for the title of Golden Mermaid, the Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America.
On September 8, 1921, more than 100,000 came to watch the contestants, a turn-out much greater than expected. The winner, 16-year-old Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C., received a $100 prize. When she returned in 1922 to defend her title, she was draped in the American flag and called “Miss America”.
Although swim suits of that era covered more than some dresses do today, by 1950 it was decreed that the winner be crowned in an evening dress, not a bathing suit.