Archive Digger

While I congratulate the newly crowned Miss America, Miss Virginia Caressa Cameron, I must confess that there’s only one previous Miss America who really has stayed in my mind all these years.

Yes, that one: Vanessa Williams.

Before she was an actress, before she was a singer, she was a beautiful woman who became the first black Miss America. Until nude photos of her shot before she began competing in pageants surfaced and she was forced to resign, 10 months into her “reign.”

In the long run, that may have worked for her, as she is, as I mentioned, the only Miss America I can name (though that may also be because the scandal broke when this newshound was an impressionable teenager). She’s had a highly successful career, most recently on the just-canceled ABC show “Ugly Betty.”

So I found a story from the Allentown Morning Call from back in 1984 when Miss America resigned and the pageant world collectively freaked out.