As Jack noted in his comments on Margaret “Mug” Richardson, the archives yield scant information on early Miss North Carolinas.
According to contemporary news accounts, the first Miss North Carolina was crowned at Wrightsville Beach in 1933, and later she is pictured in a lineup of contestants in Atlantic City. But Leola Councilman of Sanford is inexplicably ignored in both Miss North Carolina and Miss America pageant histories.
I had hoped this badge and photo from the collection could be traced to an appearance by Miss Councilman at the 1933 national convention of the American Legion, held in conjunction with the Century of Progress world’s fair. Alas, no, says Donna Hay of Encino, Calif., who has done remarkably detailed research on the often chaotic 1933 competition. The Chicago exposition rolled out “lots of state beauty queens throughout its year of operation [that] had nothing to do with the Miss America pageant.”
So who is that off-brand Miss North Carolina riding regally past the crowds along Chicago’s waterfront? Her name is remembered even less than Leola Councilman’s.
For a lovingly amused look at North Carolina’s state pageant culture, see Frank Deford’s “There She Is: The Life and Times of Miss America” (1971).
Donna Hay adds this context for Leola Councilman’s exclusion:
“The 1933 Pageant was such a fiasco that there was no pageant in 1934, and in 1935 when it was reinstated [officials] cut themselves off from previous pageants, trying desperately to avoid the bad publicity of the 1933 pageant. “The Miss America Organization had little data on any of the 1933 contestants — they were missing the names of three contestants, and didn’t even know who was first runner up and who was second! So it was not personal that their histories have mentioned little of Leola — they tried to mention little of any of the contestants!”
I wonder what went so wrong with the 1933 event . . .
Darn near everything, Kevin….
http://missamerica1933.com/missamerica.html
If, as Donna Hay says, “…there was no pageant in 1934…” and Leola Councilman was selected Miss North Carolina in 1933, how and when was Margaret Richardson selected Miss North Carolina 1934?