Jo-Carroll Dennison was an actress and the oldest surviving former Miss America, having won the pageant in 1942.Dennison grew up traveling in a medicine show with her parents.
She didn’t plan on pursuing a career on stage as an adult, but when a banker stopped her on the street in Tyler, Texas one day to ask if she’d represent his bank in the town beauty pageant, she reluctantly agreed.
Dennison won not only that pageant but a succession of bigger pageants that led her to Miss America. With a talent performance of “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” Dennison was crowned Miss America 1942.
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