You know I always had kind of a love/hate thing with the Miss America pageant. When I was little -- it was a total dream for me, my little girl cousins, and friends. We watched the whole thing and even cried if our state rep. didn't make it to the finals. It wasn't just a beauty pageant; it was a SCHOLARSHIP pageant. Seeing Bess Meyerson on TV and knowing she was a former Miss America (in spite of not being blonde, blue-eyed, vapid, or most of the other prerequisites for 1950-60's beauty) made us proud.
As I got older and learned more, the whole experience started to sour somewhat -- it mattered to me that a contestant was not allowed to have been married or older than 26 (How come?) and that it really seemed (to me anyway) to be more about being America's Designated Virgin of the Year than anything desireable in and of itself -- certainly not about the SCHOLARSHIP any more. Oddly, my daughter was never all that interested -- even when she was little. maybe -- it's time has just passed...