A franchise that puts Spanish Fork beauty contestants back on the road to Miss America has been granted to the new director of the local contest.
The franchise went to Harriet Peterson, newly named director of the Miss Spanish Fork Scholarship Pageant. The state pageant board stripped Spanish Fork of its right to compete in 1993 after a dispute with then-local pageant director Janice Nielsen.
The franchise goes with the director, not the city, said City Councilwoman Lil Shepherd.
Without the right to compete in other contests that lead to Miss America, beauty queens here and their attendants could never compete beyond Spanish Fork, said Shepherd. Now the current Miss Spanish Fork, Summer Chambers, can compete in the 1999 Miss Utah contest, giving her a shot at the national crown and lucrative scholarships, she said.
Chambers, 18, said she was preparing for the state contest next summer. "Right now I'm really nervous about it," she said. But if she doesn't compete, she would lose her $2,000 Miss Spanish Fork scholarship from the city.
The City Council has said the scholarship money will stay the same next year even though the winner can go on to the Miss Utah contest. In the past, some of that money was used to purchase the Miss Utah wardrobe. The city raised the amount when it was excluded from the state and national pageants.
The city sponsors the Miss Spanish Fork contest with a $9,000 budget. The scholarships take $4,100, and the rest is used for running the pageant. First, second and third runners-up also win scholarships.