Miss America 1997 Tara Dawn Holland isn't the only one sad to see her reign come to an end.
Literacy advocates say they will also miss the Kansas beauty queen who championed their cause during her national speaking tour."Any effort by anyone that promotes the cause is always welcome. It's even better when someone the stature of Miss America decides to promote it," said Carmel Mackin, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Family Literacy in Louisville, Ky.
Holland, 24, of Overland Park, Kan., served as a literacy volunteer for six years before she was crowned Miss America 1997 a year ago. Her work with the Campus Alliance for Literacy at Florida State University earned her recognition as No. 723 of President Bush's thousand points of light in 1992.
The work didn't stop when she got famous. She visited hundreds of programs over the past year.
"Her exposure, in terms of public service announcements and other activities, clearly has brought people into programs who would not have come otherwise," said Peter Waite, executive director of Laubach Literacy, the nation's largest not-for-profit adult literacy organization.
Not that Holland is finished helping.
She said she plans to resume her volunteer work "when my life settles down enough for me to be in one place for two weeks in a row."
Holland, who sang with the Boston Pops and the Kansas City Symphony during her reign, also hopes to sing professionally. "I do have to make a living," she said.
A second-year graduate student in choral music education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Holland said she also would like to become a middle-school music teacher.
With her successor to be named Saturday in the annual pageant, Holland had time to consider the highlight of her yearlong Cinderella story.
It wasn't riding in limousines, signing autographs, appearing on "The Tonight Show" or meeting the Clintons, the Gores, the Bushes, Oprah Winfrey, Willie Nelson or H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
"Being in Amory, Miss., and having a 45-year-old woman say to me, `I know that because of what you said, I want to get a degree,' " she said. "That's what's really rewarding about the job."