Growing up in Kinston, Dana King never considered being in a pageant, but thanks to the persistence of Kinston High School’s drama teacher, the late Oran K. Perry, she competed and won the title of Miss Kinston 1977.
“I did it for the experience, but I had no idea I would win,” King said Wednesday, reminiscing of late November of 1976, when she was crowned.
King, now Lenoir County’s elections director and treasurer of the Miss Kinston-Lenoir County Association, is in Las Vegas this week with Jessica Barwick Murphy, another former Miss Kinston-Lenoir County — the Miss Kinston competition became Miss Kinston-Lenoir County during the 1990s — and other supporters of Arlie Honeycutt, the former Miss Kinston-Lenoir County 2012 and current Miss North Carolina.
Honeycutt, a native of Garner and a junior at ECU, is competing for the title of Miss America. The contestants, representing 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, will be going through a variety of preliminary competitions this week, including swimsuit, talent, an on-stage question and more.
The top scorers in the preliminary rounds advance to the final round Saturday, which will air live at 9 p.m. on ABC.
Winning the scholarship pageant gave then-18-year-old King an opportunity to travel “around the whole county, really, meeting people I may not have really ever had the chance or the occasion to meet.”
She said she had never participated in any drama classes when Perry encouraged her to compete in Miss Kinston toward the end of her senior year at KHS.
Perry ran a number of arts programs in Kinston and Lenoir County, and served as director and chairman of the Miss Kinston-Lenoir County competition.
King researched a potential talent, and decided to take on ventriloquism. She purchased a record to teach her how to speak without moving her lips, and a doll which she named “Aunt Eva,” after her mother Eva.
King said she competed in the Miss North Carolina pageant in June of 1977, but did not win.
“I had a wonderful time the whole year, big support from my family,” she said.
King added: “That’s why I’m trying so hard to get people on the (Miss Kinston-Lenoir County) committee to get sponsorships to keep it going because I had such a good experience. I want other girls in our area to have the same experience.”
Murphy, currently the executive director of the Miss Kinston-Lenoir County pageant and wife of Kinston Mayor B.J. Murphy, said her win “made me into the person I am today.”
She competed for Miss Kinston-Lenoir County in late 2001, when she was a first-year student at Lenoir Community College.
“I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of person,” she said Wednesday. “I’m introverted by nature, so it made me come out of my shell and open up.”
Murphy said she also competed in the 2002 Miss N.C. pageant, and recalled being sheltered with her fellow contestants at Peace College in Raleigh.
“You have no access to the outside world — no cell phone, no computer, you’re completely sheltered,” she said. “You rehearse all day every day until the pageant begins.”
Murphy also talked about the experience of being in Las Vegas as Miss America gets underway.
“The Miss America stage by itself is just amazing to see, so the whole atmosphere is wonderful,” she said.
David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or David.Anderson@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at DavidFreePress.
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For more information on Miss America, visit missamerica.org