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Our Miss Americas
Thousands of young women have worked and sacrificed in pursuit of wearing America’s most coveted crown, hoping to glide down the runway in Atlantic City to the strains of “There She Is - Miss America!”  Such is the case for the three Texans who’ve achieved that lofty goal: Miss America 1942 Jo-Carroll Dennison, Miss America 1971 Phyllis George and Miss America 1975 Shirley Cothran.

Miss America 1942 Jo-Carroll Dennison
Dennison was the first wartime Miss America.  As she puts it, “I was born and raised in a medicine show.”  Her parents headed a Vaudeville troupe and she began singing and dancing onstage at age two.  She was working as a legal secretary in Tyler when a businessman asked her to represent his bank in the local pageant.  “I refused,” Dennison says, “until he told me they would buy me a new bathing suit for the occasion.  If I’d already had a bathing suit, I honestly don’t think I’d entered.”

She was escorted to the Miss Texas Pageant in Austin by her boss, former U.S. Senator Earle Mayfield, and his wife, Ora; they stayed with Coke and Fay Stevenson in the Governor’s Mansion.  “I mainly remember that as I walked on stage, I was startled by the immediate wild response from the servicemen in the audience.  Later, I found out that the elderly Mrs. Mayfield and Mrs. Stevenson had raced up and down the tiers of the stadium yelling, ‘Vote for Miss East Texas, Vote for Miss East Texas!’  And it worked.”  

Dennison created a similar sensation at the Miss America Pageant.  The event saluted America’s armed forces with an opening number that featured a mock-up of a B-29 bomber.  Her talent was equally attention-getting.  According to a news report, “Miss Texas, garbed in a typical Western costume of doeskin chaps, checked flannel shirt and wide-brimmed hat, had the audience, and especially the soldiers in attendance, clapping with her as she sang and danced to the spirited ‘Deep In The Heart of Texas’.”  Recalls Dennison, “I asked one of the judges later why they picked me.  He said, ‘We were afraid if we didn’t, the boys in the balcony would lynch us!’” 

After her reign, during which she sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of war bonds, Dennison embarked on an eight-year movie career.  She worked as an assistant at Rodgers and Hammerstein’s New York headquarters and, during television’s infancy, helped launch three series.  

“Now in my mid-80s, I still find myself pulling in my stomach, standing tall and smiling a lot,” Dennison says.  “Even with all the fascinating things I’ve done, I’m invariably introduced as ‘a former Miss America.’  After the inevitable question ‘What year?’ comes the question ‘What state?’  And I always answer with pride, ‘I was Miss Texas, of course!”

Miss America 1971 Phyllis George
George, who has homes in both New York City and Lexington, Kentucky, is one of only a handful of Miss Americas who went on to achieve true celebrity.  She still cringes a bit; however, recalling the night she won.  “I started down the runway and the crown fell on the floor.  Stones went flying, the banner dropped to my shoulders, my hair was sticking up; I looked like a ragamuffin.  Gee, my big moment, but it did break the ice with reporters, audiences, everybody.”  The front-page headline of the next day’s “Fort Worth Star-Telegram” proudly read, “WE’VE WON, BY GEORGE.”

She’s been a sportscaster, a television personality, a convenience-food entrepreneur and the First Lady of Kentucky.  Today, George juggles a multitude of personal appearances, business meetings and television stints.  As a businesswoman, she revolutionized the retail chicken industry, and was named one of the “Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World.”  The author of five books and honored as one of the “50 Greatest Women in Radio & Television,” she’s also got a new business venture, this one involving skin-care products.  “When I started the chicken business, I remember thinking, ‘I’d really rather be in something more glamorous’.” 

“A couple of times a year I go home to Texas to refuel and recharge.  I hang out with family and friends, and we eat at the Black-Eyed Pea, Chili’s or El Matador in Denton.  I’m who I’ve always been and who I’ll always be.” 

Miss America 1975 Shirley Cothran
The third in Texas’ trio of national titleholders, Shirley Cothran, still marvels at the improbability of her win.  The regal bearing and apparent self-confidence were, she says, merely camouflage worn by a quiet little bookworm.  Cothran recalls, “I was very introverted and shy.  I wasn’t a cheerleader or a prom queen.  A few years ago, I was in the grocery store and ran into a high school classmate.  I didn’t recognize him, but he recognized me, and he said, ‘Shirley, I saw you on the Miss America Pageant.  And I couldn’t believe you won!’  Well, he said it with such enthusiasm that I couldn’t be offended; but that about sums it up - no one would have described me back then as anything but a wallflower.”

“After I won Miss America, the newspapers referred to me as a flautist,” she says. “I wasn’t a flautist - I was a Texas flute tooter!”  Unlike Dennison and George, Cothran opted not to pursue a career in movies or television.  Instead, she applied her $15,000 scholarship to earn a Ph.D. in education.  She works about seven months a year, accepting six or so speaking engagements per month and leaving summer and holidays for family.  Despite her trim figure and four-day-a-week gym habit, Cothran admits to certain guilty pleasures, “I love chicken-fried steak and all those bad things Texans love to eat.” 

Wherever they go, whatever they do, the eyes of Texas are upon them.  George may have said it best, “You can take the girl out of Texas, but you just can’t take the Texas out of the girl!” 
 

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