The Distinguished Young Women Class of 2011 visited Bellingrath Gardens and Home for a welcome breakfast and tour of the historic gardens Monday morning, June 13, 2011, in Theodore, Alabama. Contestants wave to the official photographer during a group photo in front of the Bellingrath home.. (Press-Register/Mike Kittrell)
MOBILE, Alabama -- Last June, after 18 months of market research and even more of soul-searching, America's Junior Miss became Distinguished Young Women.
The AJM name, it seemed, evoked images of a teenage beauty pageant.
Scholarships didn’t come to mind; high heels and hairspray did.
“We were going to die if we didn’t do something,” executive director Becky Jo Peterson said during an orientation session last week for the 50 state winners.
A year after the name change, Peterson continues to take heat for it, especially in the city where the program’s National Finals have been held for more than half a century.
Peterson knows plenty about America’s Junior Miss history and traditions. She was Napa Valley’s Junior Miss in 1975.
DYW schedule
Monday
• Luau at LuLu's, 6 p.m. at LuLu's Homeport Marina in Gulf Shores, the 50 state representatives will enjoy the sunset and dine on local seafood.
Wednesday
• Beauty, Brains & Barbecue, noon, the young women will sample barbecue and all the fixins' at Saucy-Q Barbecue on Government Street.
• Community Night, 6:30 p.m. the public can get a sneak peek of the Distinguished Young Women as they perform selections from the 54th National Finals program. To purchase tickets, call 251-438-3621.
Thursday-Saturday
• Preliminaries and Finals, 7 p.m. at the Mobile Civic Center Theater. Preliminaries are Thursday and Friday night with National Finals held on Saturday. Tickets may be purchased by visiting www.DistinguishedYW.org or by calling 251-438-3621.
But, she said, consultant research revealed that many past America’s Junior Misses — the ones who took home the biggest cash scholarships — were not listing the honor on their resumes, fearing the pageant stereotype.
“I think everybody was pretty surprised,” Peterson said of the reaction of program leaders and board members. “It was a very tangible thing.”
Humble beginnings
America’s Junior Miss started as a local competition hosted by the Mobile Junior Chamber of Commerce called the Azalearama Pageant. High school senior girls competed to be crowned queen of the Azalea Trail Maids.
But when entrants started showing up from Mississippi and Florida, sponsors opened it to high school girls from every state and renamed it the Junior Miss America Pageant in 1957.
It became America’s Junior Miss in 1959.
In the 1980s, yet another name arrived: America’s Young Woman on the Year. But that change, said Peterson, was made too quickly and without enough notice to participating affiliates.
The name America’s Junior Miss returned in the early 1990s.
In 2005, America's Junior Miss lost its national television contract, a signal of changing times and tastes. For years, the crowning night of competition had been broadcast live on ABC, then on cable channels. Now, the final competition is streamed live on the Internet at www.local15tv.com.
But, said Peterson, the name change is winning notice and creating new energy.
A fashion fund-raising event this year that brought in $100,000 was sponsored by IP Casino, Resort & Spa in Biloxi and the Bacot McCarty Foundation. Master Boat Builders and Eastern Shore Toyota, she said, also have signed on as new sponsors this year.
A tennis event is expected to reap more money and publicity when it airs on The Tennis Channel this fall. U.S. Davis Cup and Olympic team members Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, and Bob and Mike Bryan will headline the Gulf Coast Tennis Challenge Sept. 26 at the Mobile Civic Center.
“The players were so much more excited about doing something for a program called Distinguished Young Women,” Peterson said.
The bottom line for the name change, she said, came down to generating funding to stay afloat. “It’s all about money,” she said.
The new name has found support among at least one crucial constituency: The members of the Distinguished Young Women Class of 2011.
“When the program was Junior Miss a lot of times I would get asked ‘Are you Junior Miss America?’” explained Hannah Roberts, Mississippi’s Distinguished Young Woman for 2011. “We got tired of telling people what we are not.”
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
