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A Star-Herald Publication
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Overview of Miss America pageant Since 1921, young women have vied for the chance to be crowned Miss America. This year’s pageant will be Sunday, Sept. 15, in Atlantic City, N.J., and aired on ABC. Miss America is a spokesperson using her title to educate millions of Americans on an issue of importance to herself
and society at large. The young woman crowned Miss America will travel more than 20,000 miles a month, while suppor ting her ideals and helping others. Every young woman in every state of America has the opportunity to become Miss America. Following are young
women throughout the ferty — Scottsbluff years from Nebraska and 1967 Patricia Martinez Wyoming areas that — Torrington have achieved their state 1953 Elaine Holkentitles and gone on to brink — Torrington compete for Miss America. Miss Nebraska 2013 -1925 Miss Wyoming 2013 JaCee Pilkington 2013-1932 — Minatare 2012 Lexie Madden — 2012 Mariah Cook — Torrington Chadron 2007 Jennifer McCaf2011Kayla Batt — Al-
liance 2010 Teresa Scanlan — Gering 2007 Ashley Bauer — Scottsbluff 1971 Sally Lou Warner — Bushnell Miss America 2011 Teresa Scanlan —Gering
Photo by Diane Wetzell/World-Herald News Service
JaCee Pilkington is crowned as Miss Nebraska 2013 during the final evening competition at North Platte High School. Pilkington is a Minatare native and was Miss Western Nebraska. Her platform is Operation Remember Me.
Pilkington: Ready to take on Miss America By MAUNETTE LOEKS New Media Editor
As Miss Nebraska 2013, Minatare resident JaCee Pilkington said she is ready to compete in the Miss America Pageant. Pilkington is set to start competing and participating in preliminary activities on Sept. 9. The pageant, which returns to Atlantic City, N.J., this year, will air on Sept. 15, at 7 p.m. (ET). She arrived on Sept. 3 and will participate in a variety of pre-pageant events, including attending a Blondie concert and a Philadelphia Phillies game. “In the beginning, it was A lot of people didn’t nerve-wracking, thinking think that I would return to about competing in the Miss America pageant,” pageants. But, I did, and I decided to give it my all. You Pilkington said. “Now, I’m just ready. I’m ready to go, have to sacrifice a lot of I’m ready to get started things to compete in and I’m ready for it now.” As a teenager, Pilkingpageants, but I have enjoyed ton became interested in the experience. competing in pageants after being approached by ~ JaCee Pilkington Janie Scanlan, the mother of former Miss Nebraska and Miss America Teresa Scanlan. The Scanlan and Pilkington families both attended WestWay Christian Church and Janie Scanlan told Pilkington she should compete in pageants after hearing her sing. “At first, for me, pageants were just a big talent show,” she said. “I love to sing and I could wear a pretty dress while doing it.” She competed in her first pageant in 2008, winning the Miss Scotts Bluff County Fair Teen Queen. In 2009, she won the Miss Outstanding Teen competition and competed in Orlando, Fla. After taking about three years off, she competed in the Miss Western Nebraska pageant, which made her eligible to compete Courtesy of G. Stansbery Images for Miss Nebraska. “A lot of people didn’t think that I would return to pageants,” JaCee Pilkington is crowned Miss Outstanding Teen in 2009,
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one of the first pageants that led her down the road to
See PILKINGTON, page 3 competing for the Miss America title.
Pilkington’s parents offer support By LOGAN ALLEN Staff Reporter
The day JaCee Pilkington was crowned Miss Nebraska will be a day her parents, Jess and Joni, will never forget. “I had some advice from a friend who is the mother of a past Miss Nebraska,” said Joni. “When they announced the winner, she told me to really look around at your family and to really take it all in. I concentrated on that, and I looked at Jess and my mom, and I looked at our other daughter, JaLee.” “It seems ever since she was a little girl, I guess I always thought she would get to a place where maybe something like this would happen. It’s kind of like a movie reel of all the things you can remember since she was a little girl, from singing for the Kiwanis to winning,” said Jess. It took a lot of work to earn the crown, and now the real work has set in. Along with her duties as Miss Nebraska, she has been prepping for the Miss America pageant. But it’s a good thing for JaCee. She thrives when she’s busy, said Jess. The pageant committee sets up some of her appearances, but she is responsible for booking additional appearances and planning her schedule. At the beginning of August, JaCee paid a visit to the Madonna Recovery Hospital in Lincoln. The majority of the children at the hospital are victims of accidents, and it was a particularly moving experience for her. “She said she went out to the car and she had to sit there for a long time and cry. She said a lot of these kids are so happy, and they have the best attitude. There was this little girl that wouldn’t stop kissing her. She just hung on her,” said Joni. In the few weeks she has held the Miss Nebraska title, she has been on the run constantly, traveling in and out of town. Even the family’s golden retriever, Charlie, has become used to the bustle. “He loves being around everybody,” said Jess. “I laugh because every time we would bring out the suitcases that dog knows we’re leaving and he would start moping around. But there’s been so many suitcases lying around the house, he doesn’t even care anymore, he just steps over them.” The opportunity, as well as the responsibility, that comes with her title is something she is thankful for, and something she doesn’t take lightly. “We were talking late one night, and she said to me, ‘Dad, it’s important to me, as Miss Nebraska, that every time somebody meets me that I’m showing them my best side, because this is their first impression of Miss Nebraska.’ I thought that’s taking your job seriously,” said Jess. JaCee’s platform is Operation Remember Me, which encourages the recognition and support of veterans. Other than her paternal grandfather, who was a World War II veteran, she doesn’t have any other veterans in her family. And so her passion for the cause is due largely to her own convictions. JaCee has volunteered for many veterans programs, and she has always been surprised that many of the veterans’ events weren’t well attended. “She would always sing for the Memorial Day services out at the cemetery, and I think working for Sen. (Mike) Johanns last summer really made her think about veterans.” While working for Sen. Johanns in Washington, D.C., she liked to run through the National Mall. One day, she noticed a man sitting in front of the World War II Memorial wall of stars. He was sobbing uncontrollably. Because of the patches on his shirt, JaCee knew he was a veteran. “She ran up to him and shook his hand and told him thank you for his service, and he said that was the first time anybody had ever told him that,” said Joni. See PARENTS, page 2
Friends and educators reflect on Pilkington’s character By JOE DUTTON Staff Reporter
In her first year of competing for the Miss Nebraska title, JaCee Pilkington couldn’t have made it this far without the support she has received from others. Pilkington was named Miss Nebraska after her first competition in North Platte last June. Pilkington initially entered into the pageantry realm in 2009 and won the Miss Nebraska Outstanding Teen Competition. During time off from the pageant circuit, Pilkington has attended Doane College in Crete, for the past three years with the original intent in becoming a doctor, but now has become a double major in political
science and business. “Now a political science major planning to attend law school, my future plans have taken definite unexpected turns,” she said. Pilkington has taken this school year off in order to enter into the Miss Nebraska competition. This ultimately won her the crown to move on to the Miss America competition in Atlantic City, N.J., and plans to graduate in 2015. After winning the crown, Pilkington was not the only one excited to win this year as her college professors and friends shared in the excitement of her recently donned tiara and title. One such college instructor was Tim Hill, an associate professor of political sci-
ence at Doane College. He said he is excited for Pilkington and even recalled jumping around his kitchen a little bit when he had heard she had won. “I watched how hard she worked for this all last year, and I know it’s a dream come true for her,” he said. “Frankly, it could not have happened to a nicer, more gracious person.” Hill said that, in almost every way, Pilkington is the opposite of the “beauty queen” stereotype, since she is intelligent, mature and a force to be reckoned with. This month, Hill hopes to see Pilkington win the Miss America crown and also be successful beyond her graduation from college. Hill said he anticipates she will find a
career and a life that she finds fulfilling and rewarding outside of her pageant career. “JaCee Pilkington will succeed at anything she wants to do, full stop,” he said. “If she decided she wanted to be the first person on Mars, she would find a way to do it.” Hill said he has not met a faculty member at the college who isn’t fond of Pilkington or glad to see her on the class roster at the beginning of the semester. This claim holds true with Doane College assistant professor Wendy Hind who had Pilkington in her constitutional law class. Hind said Pilkington has grown enormously as a scholar, especially in her classroom. “It was a very demanding course,” she See FRIENDS, page 3