2Progress 2022
WHAT IS DISTINGUISHED YOUNG WOMEN?
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f ever there was an expert on the Distinguished Young Women of Franklin County, it would have to be Dr. Susan Hargett. After all, the Belgreen native has been coordinating the local program, coaxing high school girls to pursue their highest potential, since the mid-1980s. “My job is teenage girl whisperer,” Hargett said jokingly. She puts her all into encouraging and motivating local girls into participating in the DYW program. “It’s almost like a ministry. We’re changing lives, one at a time.” Prior to Hargett’s taking charge, she said Franklin
County didn’t have a formal competition, as such; rather, local competitors entered the state competition at-large. “If you don’t have a program in your county, you go down and compete at large, and there’s still lots of counties that do that,” Hargett explained. “A lot of counties don’t have a program – and nobody has a program as good as us.” When Hargett was first recruited by state coordinators to lead local programming, she sent at-large Franklin Countian Jamie McBrayer to state in 1986. “I knew she was valedictorian of her class – super talented and very smart,” Hargett said. The following year, with Hargett’s initiative, an official county competition began in 1987. Held at Belgreen High School, the new local program named Michelle Davis as its first winner, and participation each year began to include more girls from across the county – whereas prior to the local competition being established, primarily Russellville girls had represented the county in an at-large capacity. Of course, DYW has its roots in the Junior Miss program. According to program history, Junior Miss started as a local competition based in Mobile, originally called Azalearama. When girls from across state lines started signing up to participate, sponsors opened it up to high school girls from every state and renamed it the Junior Miss America Pageant in 1957, with a slight change to America’s Junior Miss in 1959. By the early 1960s, every state in the nation boasted a Junior Miss program, with the state winners converging in Mobile for the national competition. Aside from a brief flirtation with the name America’s Young Woman of the Year in the ’80s, the program continued as Junior
We care about community, and we care about kids. Not all people are made to feel special by their friends or family, so we’re changing the world one girl at a time.
Miss until 2010, when it was rebranded as Distinguished Young Women – a title Hargett said represents, at least in part, the program’s effort to distance itself from the idea of a beauty pageant, as Junior Miss/DYW has always been a merit-based scholarship program rather than a pageant. “They wanted to remove everything that screamed pageant,” Hargett said. You won’t find tiaras or bathing suit competitions among Distinguished Young Women. “It’s always been said, it’s more like ‘the girl next door,’” – that is, the smart, well spoken, talented, fit and poised girl next door. “It’s not somebody who’s trying to be beautiful; it’s more about the girl who is beautiful on the inside.” That’s a focus that is illustrated in the components of DYW. Competitors are judged and scored based on the same criteria at the local, state and national levels: • Scholastics, 25 percent – A panel of qualified individuals familiar with high school transcripts evaluates the participant’s high school academic record and test scores. • Interview, 25 percent – Judges note each girl’s personality, ability to relate to others, maturity and ability to express her thoughts during a 10-minute personal interview. • Talent, 20 percent – Each contestant presents a 90-second performing arts presentation on stage in front of an audience. Judges award points for technical ability, appropriateness of selection, stage presence and execution. • Fitness, 15 percent – During a choreographed group routine, judges evaluate each girl’s physical stamina, coordination, agility and flexibility. • Self expression, 15 percent – Judges evaluate the participant’s grace, poise, demeanor, carriage, posture and speaking ability as she moves about the stage and speaks on a provided topic. In 1994-1995, Franklin County combined its program with those in Lauderdale and Colbert counties. It all started when Hargett got a call from the state coordinators. “They said, ‘The Jaycees have given up the program in Florence, and there’s not anybody to take it. Would you take it?’” With her hands full in Franklin County, Hargett knew there was no way she could take on an additional county program. “I said, ‘Here’s the deal: If I can do Franklin, Colbert and Lauderdale together, I’ll take it, but we have to have a winner from each county” – a Hargett mandate that ended the previous tradition of having only one winner from either Lauderdale or Colbert, rather than one from each. With a competition that was about to more than
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