That Junior Miss Spirit (1970)

[Music] [Music] I think high school is one of the best times in a girl's life. There's lots of school spirit and plenty of time for fun. [Music] But one thing about it, there's an awful lot of pressure for a girl to be part of the crowd. To do what everyone else does, to wear what everyone else wears, to say what everyone else says. I think girls would like to be part of some kind of activity that lets her develop her own individual personality. that brings out the best in her that lets her discover that there is a great big wonderful world outside of high school. [Music] I've always wanted to be a junior miss ever since I read an article about it when I was 13 years old in a magazine. It seems so wonderful and exciting and a chance for every high school senior girl to show off her own personal talents and capabilities. My mother had always taught me that whatever you wanted, if you wished for it hard enough and worked for it also, you could get it. And I guess it's the same with Junior Miss. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I can't think of any girl who wouldn't have a good time taking part in Junior Miss. It's a chance of a lifetime to be judged on what you are as an individual. A chance to show off your talents if you have them and a chance to stand up and be counted for what you believe in. [Music] Don't think that life is wasted on the youth. [Applause] Moving to the Moving to the Moving to The rhythm of the Hutchkins. [Music] Most high school senior girls today have had the chance to study a foreign language and learn from books something about other people and other places. But not too many have had the chance to see for themselves. I was lucky, I guess. I had the chance to travel abroad on a European tour, and I sure can appreciate how much it broadens you to go to new places and meet new people. Even if most high school girls haven't had the chance to go abroad, they can still see a lot of new scenery and meet a lot of new people in Junior Miss. If a girl wins her local pageant, she represents her home community at the state pageant, often several hundred miles from home. Most important, Junior Miss gives you the chance to meet so many great girls. They're all so enthusiastic and so friendly. It's here that you really begin to feel the spirit that all junior misses talk about. It's a sort of closeness you get being together so much, eating together, relaxing together, enjoying the opportunity to be on our own, learning what a wonderful and talented group of girls you are a part of. It's something all junior misses feel, but it's hard to explain. You know, the girls we've had staying with us here in our home in previous years have talked about something which they call the junior miss spirit. Do any of you have an idea about what the junior miss spirit really is? I think it's wanting everybody else to do good and the best one to win. Yeah. Even if it's not you and you know that everybody's a winner and nobody's it's not really a a competitive spirit like gee I want to win. I'm not going to be nice to all the other girls. Everybody just feels so together and if you get scared while the rest of the other girls they're scared too. I mean you don't feel like a doctor. There are a lot of things that make up a junior miss. One is the creative and performing arts. None of us is a professional in any way but each girl has her own particular talent and this is her opportunity to express herself in her own way and to truly do her thing. When love beckons unto you, follow him. Though his ways be hard and steep. For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you. Love gives not but itself and takes not but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed. For love is sufficient unto love. All the rehearsal time really pays off when you're on stage with the patent judges and hundreds of people looking on. [Music] Liza, why did you choose the field of physical therapy? Well, I've always been interested in the field of medicine. There are a lot of other qualities the judges look for in the junior miss. Your goals in life, scholastic achievement, your personality, and your poise. We went through all the different The judge's interview counts 35% of the total schooling. So, it's pretty important. And I think it'll be a very rewarding occupation. They leave silences in your uh interview which u weren't in my local pageant. They kept firing questions at me and this one they let times just to see if I was going to bring up something to say myself. I didn't. I've never experienced anything quite so exciting as the state pageant. All those people out there cheering you on, they really seem to have the junior miss spirit. All those hours and hours of rehearsal on the youth fitness and poisoned appearance routines, you're really out there trying to put on a good show for the judges, of course, but most of all for yourself. Then it's all over. The judges make their decision and you find out which one of you is going to be the new state junior miss. The fourth runner up is Green County Junior Miss Lesie Norton. Memphis's junior miss Brenda Smith. The third runner up, North Montgomery Countyy's junior miss Leonard Marorrow. Third runner up, Knoxville's junior miss Deborah Garrett. Second runner up, Belmont County's junior miss Sharon Ericson. The first runner up is the licking county junior miss Molly Kelly. Here it is, ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, Tennessee's junior miss of 1970 is Ohio's junior miss for 1970 is Blunt County. Mahoning County's junior, Miss Marilyn Kuhar. [Applause] [Music] In just a few short months, these two state winners will join 48 other girls for a trip to Washington DC. Then on to Mobile, Alabama for the national finals. there. An exciting week of activities will end with the selection of one girl to be America's junior miss. [Music] It was my first airplane ride to Washington, so I was kind of scared. I was a little bit scared, you know, to see what it was going to be like. And I didn't know what the girls were going to be like and I didn't know how the people would be. The junior mystics out just like a green apple. I mean, they're just, you know, just just something about them and the girls are all dressed in their suits and so on and hats. And one of the things that impressed me about the whole thing was the enthusiasm of all the girls and all the people that worked at the pageant. And I think that is really great. There's all sorts of pageantss that are held in the United States, but I think Junior Miss recognizes the young girls who really represent the best. These girls are just fantastic. In Washington, we toured lots of monuments. We toured the Lincoln Memorial and we went to the White House. Washington is a beautiful city and the flowers just all around. It was really very beautiful and I was I was impressed with the capital and the Washington Monument and the White House and I enjoyed the air of excitement that is in Washington. We also had a lunchon party where our senators and congressmen were invited to come and we had a nice little visit, nice little lunch. Both of my senators and my congressman came and they asked me a lot about the pageant, you know, how we were judged, what we were doing, what we did in Washington, and we talked a little about political issues. We arrived at the international airport there and and they took us out in one I don't know what they call it. one of these big things that cart you out to the airplane. You know, this is my second airplane ride. And we get there and on the side of the plane, they've got painted junior miss special. And boy, this was just great. We got in the plane and we had lunch and we sang songs and I don't see how the pilot ever got us there on course. It was like it wasn't really an airplane. It was like it was a hotel because as soon as we had our dinner, girls were up in the aisle walking around. Uh, a lot of the girls were taking pictures madly. I was knitting to keep myself calm. Most of the girls on the way to Mobile were priming and getting ready for the big arrival. Little did we know how big it was going to be. When we arrived in Mobile, that was one of the most super experiences I've ever had because there were so many people there and it was dark and they there were lights around though and the spotlight came on you when you got off the plane and they said, "And here's so and so's junior miss." And then said something about you as you went down the ramp and everyone clapped and seemed so excited that you were there. [Music] They walked us down the red carpet and we were taken to our Chevrolet cars and we were driven to a nearby shopping center and the JC's prepared a great big firework display for us. I'd always heard about the southern hospitality and I thought, well, that's a thing of the past, frontier and all that. When I got down there, it was all there and living color. These girls were not one type of girl. They were farm girls and city girls and ballerinas and guitar players. and their interests were so varied and it's really given me a broad outlook on the entire level of girls my age. They were interested in really what's happening in the world, the bigger things that just their genuine interest in people is what really counts. I think that Junior Miss has set into action things that I felt all my life and the ideals that I've thought of through my parents and I think that it's deepened these beliefs and shown me through meeting the girls and the people who work with the pageant what living like this can really mean and I think that it'll have a lasting impression the rest of my life. The three things for junior miss are poise, personality, and promise. And I think the promise is probably the most beneficial to the girls. And that's what the biggest part of their title means to them because they do have this quality of being able to talk to people and understand and communicate to all people no matter what the age or race. It's wonderful to be involved in an activity where um your experiences are so diversified. You learn a little bit about dancing, you learn a little bit about the performing arts and you learn a lot about interviews and you meet so many wonderful people and I would never have met them if it hadn't been for the pageant. It's a lot of fun but it also is very exhausting. you you really have to be in good shape and then the judges being there that's a little pressure too when they watch you rehearse and you think well gee I don't know this yet and I look that's just part of it and everyone has to learn when you're working with someone like Jean Bis it has to be fun it was very grueling of course but because you'd be working on a dance during a day that you knew you'd have to perform that night you were so interested all the time the time just flew afterwards I felt how tired I was but at the time you don't feel this you're so excited and so busy besides being just fun. Gun Miss is something that develops a girl's personality and brings out the best in her. I think that it helps in growing up. To me, that is the main thing of it. Besides the scholarship money and the fun that you have, it's just the closeness between the girls. We were all tired and we got giddy at times and we'd laugh and we cry, but the routines are a large part of the passion and it's just something you got to do. In the final analysis, it's what the judges seeing as just as girls and not on stage all the time. To be yourself because if you're not yourself, the judges are going to see right through you. The judges interview counts 35% and I think they can really tell a lot about you. The climax to the America's Junior Miss pageant comes on stage before a packed house and millions of Americans watching on television. It's quite an experience for a high school senior. [Music] It's a mixture of being happy and sad and wanting to sit down and cry and to laugh. You just don't know what to do. Of course, there's TV cameras right there in front of you, but you really don't know that there's so many people watching you. And when it hits you, boy, it hits hard and you think, "What am I doing on this stage? Me. What am I doing here?" A girl can't go to all these charm schools and things and become a junior miss. And I think that the judges aren't looking for girls who have had all this type of training for on stage because we're not professionals. Before I went to Mobile, I thought the most horrible moments would be just before the judges announced their decisions. But it's sort of funny. I think the fact that you're so tired and exhausted from all your workouts during the day that it doesn't really hit you, you know, and you're just very relaxed up on stage. The second runner up is Mississippi's junior, Miss Laura Elaine Boy. [Music] Our [Applause] first runner up is Connecticut's junior Miss Carol Elizabeth Butler. [Music] The winner, the winner of the $10,000 scholarship, the nation's ideal high school senior girl, America's junior miss for 1970. Arizona's junior miss. Pretty [Music] as a picture, sweeter than a kiss. You're the ideal girl we've chosen. Junior. It's this feeling that you always have ties between Junior and Miss sort of feeling this warmth which just radiates in the Junior Miss pageant. The friendship of the girls in the pageant and just the feeling that you can talk to them and share your feelings and thoughts with these girls. The pageant has given me a standard that I'll always set my life by. And while it sounds very trit, you really and truly do feel this way. And when other people have expected a lot of you, you're going to do your best. It does mean a lot to me and it'll always be a part of my life and I thank them. Stumbling words that make my heart speak like a Valentine junior miss. We say that you be mine.