The Miss Klamath County-Miss City of Sunshine Pageants Prepare the World for Great Women!
By Heidi Gaither, Pageant Board Member
“There she is……….Miss America……”
From a bathing beauty contest on the boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1921, the Miss America pageant was born. An American icon and 100+ year old brand, Miss America is more than a title---it is a movement of empowering young women to dream big, to insist that their voices be heard, and to inspire change in the world around them. Participants in the Miss America pageant system acquire lifelong skills while earning scholarships, meeting other like-minded women, cultivating their own personal style, and engaging within their communities.
The Miss America Organization is the leading provider of scholarships for young women in the world. Each year, more than $41 million dollars in cash and tuition scholarship assistance is made available to the 12,000 young women who compete in this pageant system across the United States on local, state and national levels. These dedicated young women who compete for the coveted titles of Miss America and Miss America’s Teen, donate more than 500,000 hours of community service each year, making the Miss America Organization one of the largest community service organizations in the country.
The Women’s Scholarship Foundation of Klamath County
Our Mission: Prepare great women for the world; and prepare the world for great women!
Here in Southern Oregon, the Miss Klamath County-Miss City of Sunshine Scholarship Program, presented by the Women’s Scholarship Foundation of Klamath County, is an official preliminary competition to the Miss Oregon and Miss Oregon’s Teen Scholarship Program, whose winners continue onto the national stage for the Miss America and Miss America’s Teen pageants. For over 55 years, the Women’s Scholarship Foundation of Klamath County has worked diligently to empower young women in their pursuit of higher education, professional development, and community-based initiatives. Since 1966, the Women’s Scholarship Foundation of Klamath County has awarded more than $1 million dollars in scholarships and awards to local participants of the Miss Klamath County-Miss City of Sunshine Scholarship Program.
Helping a titleholder win a State crown is exciting, but is not the ultimate goal of the Women’s Scholarship Foundation of Klamath County. Quite simply, our priority is to help all of our contestants, in both “Miss” and “Teen” divisions, to discover their best qualities, to recognize their boundless possibilities, and to become the best young woman that they can be. Our success as an organization does not lie in our ability to create winners on stage, but in our ability to nurture from the inside out, young women who are champions of life.
If you have time, talent, a service or venue to contribute, we have a place -and a need- for you! Whether raising scholarship dollars, working as a backstage assistant, or helping to secure briefings and platform related appearances for our titleholders, you will be making a positive difference in our community and in young women’s lives.
For more information about competing or volunteering, please visit our website at www.klamathpageants.org, or visit our social media pages on Facebook and Instagram.
