There she is ... There she was

A new Miss America was crowned last night. Her name is Lauren Nelson. She is Miss Oklahoma.
Of course, we were all pulling for Miss Georgia, Amanda Kozak, of Warner Robins, the hometown girl.
She had my vote.
The only Miss Georgia to win the title of Miss America still remains with Neva Jane Langley Fickling, of Macon. She won the crown on the night of Sept. 6, 1952.

How many of you remember that night?

Raise your hands. Go ahead and show your age.

They placed a crown on her head and draped a red velvet robe across her shoulders. It was nearly midnight. Flashbulbs along the runway twinkled like the stars above the boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J.
Back in Macon, where she was a college student at the Wesleyan Conservatory, a crowd gathered at the Pinebrook Inn to cheer the radio broadcast.
Being Miss America had been her dream since she was a young girl. Her first exposure to the Miss America pageant came when she was 14 and lived in Lakeland, Fla. She took a trip to Atlantic City, N.J., with her family and passed by the auditorium where the pageant was held.
As she began her year-long reign as Miss America 1953, she returned to Macon for a parade on Cherry Street. A path of rose petals was spread along the steps of City Hall. (The parade route passed Goldman's, the store where she bought the swimsuit she used to win the national competition.)

Here are some interesting facts you may or may not know about that night and later her reign.

• She was Florida's ``Tangerine Queen'' when she was 16. She was campus queen at Florida Southern before she began studying music at the Wesleyan Conservatory. She and four of her Wesleyan classmates were selected to enter the Miss Macon pageant in the spring of 1952.



• She first was Miss Wesleyan College, then Miss Macon, then Miss Georgia and then Miss America.



• During the Miss Macon pageant at the City Auditorium, she impressed the judges by continuing to play the piano after a storm knocked out all the lights.



• At 19, she was one of the youngest winners in pageant history and the first to have a full-time chaperone.



• Some people still claim to have seen her on TV, but they are mistaken. The pageant was not televised until 1954. Her crowning also came three years before the debut of master of ceremonies Bert Parks and his coronation song, "There She Is, Miss America.''



• On tour, she brushed elbows with Marilyn Monroe and President Eisenhower. She was in the Rose Bowl parade and on ''The Ed Sullivan Show.'' She graced the cover of Ladies Home Journal



• She is a renowned classical pianist.



• Seven years ago, she underwent heart bypass surgery.