Miss America Commits to Another

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ: The Miss America Pageant, held in this seaside resort since it began 80 years ago, will stay for at least one more year while officials consider its future.

The pageant's board of directors met Wednesday and decided to turn down offers to move the pageant next year to Nevada, Florida, California or Connecticut. Pageant officials, who had threatened to leave unless officials offer higher subsidies, announced their decision Thursday.

A task force of state and local officials will be set up to consider ways to keep the pageant in Atlantic City beyond next year.

"The simple fact is no one in recent years until now has made any effort to keep Miss America here except us," Pageant CEO Robert Renneisen Jr. said.

Acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco praised the decision, saying the pageant "shows the best side of Atlantic City, and the happy side of America, the proud side of America. So we are thrilled to continue to have it." Last week, Renneisen threatened to move the pageant because he said it had become too expensive to continue staging the event at Boardwalk Hall. Pageant officials want $1 million in new subsidies to keep the pageant at this seaside resort.

The Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority, which already underwrites the production with $678,000, has so far refused to contribute any more money.

Renneisen said Thursday that the pageant's best offer came from the Mohegan Sun, a casino in Connecticut. The pageant would have made $1 million if it took the deal but will instead stay in Atlantic City next year and likely lose $500,000, he said.

Started in 1921 as the Miss Inter-City Beauty Contest, the pageant was dreamed up as a Labor Day publicity stunt by hotel owners eager to extend the summer season.

There were eight contestants the first year. It eventually grew into an annual event publicized nationwide, and, after its first national telecast in 1954, a TV staple.

Former pageant CEO Leonard Horn had often threatened to move the contest out of Atlantic City, in the hope of getting a better deal at Boardwalk Hall.

Talk of a move escalated four years ago when the Miss America Organization left NBC for ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co. Many locals have worried that the pageant might take up permanent residence at Walt Disney World in Florida, where contestants already go for a pre-pageant vacation.

Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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Author: 6 - ABC, Action News