How many women participate at each state competition?

Have you ever wondered which state program is the largest?  And if those rankings have changed over the years?

In 1989 (in the dark ages before the internet), I was in Atlantic City as part of the Miss Texas delegation, and I actually went to the Miss America offices where they had a copy of each state's program in the lobby.  I sat in the lobby and went through EVERY program and counted the number of contestants. Yeah, I'm that nerdy and statistic-obsessed.

Then the internet became available to the general public, and research became MUCH easier!

State competitions as we know them today began in 1945 when Lenora Slaughter, Miss America's ED from 1935 through her retirement in 1967, approached the North Carolina Jaycees about starting a state program.  Texas followed two months later and soon each state had an official program that selected a representative for Miss America, many run by Jaycees chapters.  City winners going directly to Miss America started being phased out, and by 1959 every state was finally sending a winner to Atlantic City.

For many years NORTH CAROLINA conducted the largest state program in the country.  1964 & 1965 both saw 93 contestants at state and the number rose to 98 (!) in 1966 & 1968 before dropping to 70 in 1970 (MINNESOTA had the largest state program in 1970 with 72 contestants).

TEXAS averaged in the teens in the 1940s, ranged from the high teens to the low 40s in the 1950s (14 in 1952 and 42 in 1959), hit the 50s and 60s in the 1960s, stayed in the upper 50s and the 60s during the 1970s, and reached its peak in 1982 when it had 82 local winners competing over four nights of preliminary competition (and they all had to be Ziegfeld girls for the opening number - legend has it that Dawan McPeak, who would later became Miss New York 1986,  had live birds in birdcages hanging from her head dress). Texas stayed in the 60s for most of the 1980s.  In the mid and late 1990s the numbers dipped back into the upper 40s, and the numbers kept dropping in the 2000s bottoming out at 32 in 2007.  In the 2010s Texas has grown back into one of the largest state programs in the nation.  Randy Pruett's "A Dream As Big As Texas" (2010) provided a few contestants totals that I didn't already have.

FLORIDA (which had 38 contestants in 1963) hit the 50 contestant level in the early 80's and stayed in the 47-53 contestant range through 1996.  The contestant total then dropped into the upper 30s and low 40s, but Florida has brought its contestant total back into that 47-53 range in the last several years.

INDIANA averaged in the 20s throughout the 1960s and 70's, peaking at 29 contestants in 1969. In the 1990s the state dropped into the teens, bottoming out at 14 contestants in 1997.  Since then the state has grown consistently under new leadership and has had more than 30 contestants for five years straight.  2015 will be Indiana's largest program in history with 35 contestants.

Here is a comparison of the number of contestants in each state in 2015, 2010, 1999, and 1989. What's interesting is that 25+ years ago there were very few locals that awarded more than one title, and today there are few locals that DON'T award more than one title.

The rankings were determined by averaging the total contestants over the four representative years (or three, if I don't have the current total).

SEND ME UPDATES for states I don't have totals for yet, or if I have any numbers wrong.  Post on the CROWNED Facebook page or email me at crownedmissa@gmail.com.

Rank	STATE	2015	2010	1999	1989	Average
1	UTAH	53	54	58	60	56
2	TEXAS	57	33	54	69	53
3	ALABAMA	50	48	47	57	51
4	CALIFORNIA	53	56	49	42	50
5	SOUTH CAROLINA	55	50	42	43	48
6	ARKANSAS	46	44	46	48	46
7	FLORIDA	47	46	40	50	46
8	OKLAHOMA	47	43	42	48	45
9	GEORGIA	44	40	47	47	45
10	MISSISSIPPI	30	45	37	40	38
11	NORTH CAROLINA	37	28	35	47	37
12	TENNESSEE	36	37	30	40	36
13	LOUISIANA	35	29	26	40	33
14	PENNSYLVANIA	40	35	26	26	32
15	MISSOURI	26	24	32	40	31
16	MICHIGAN	34	30	26	31	30
17	KENTUCKY	32	30	31	27	30
18	OHIO	22	26	30	38	29
19	VIRGINIA	27	30	26	31	29
20	ILLINOIS	31	24	24	32	28
21	NEW JERSEY	28	27	21	26	26
22	INDIANA	35	29	17	19	25
23	WISCONSIN	26	25	23	25	25
24	COLORADO	30	28	11	22	23
25	NEW YORK	29	20	21	20	23
26	NORTH DAKOTA	22	20	24	22	22
27	MARYLAND	24	22	21	20	22
28	KANSAS	22	20	18	26	22
29	MASSACHUSETTS	23	22	18	23	22
30	MINNESOTA	27	20	15	24	22
31	NEW HAMPSHIRE	27	27	15	15	21
32	OREGON	21	24	21	17	21
33	WEST VIRGINIA	20	25	22	14	20
34	DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA	18	17	16	22	18
35	ARIZONA	24	21	16	12	18
36	HAWAII	28	22	10	12	18
37	WASHINGTON	21	19	14	18	18
38	IOWA	16	18	17	17	17
39	CONNECTICUT	13	18	11	22	16
40	NEBRASKA	13	14	18	18	16
41	IDAHO	12	22	12	15	15
42	NEW MEXICO	23	23	7	7	15
43	DELAWARE	10	16	17	15	15
44	RHODE ISLAND	12	11	13	19	14
45	SOUTH DAKOTA	13	13	14	15	14
46	ALASKA	13	12	15	12	13
47	NEVADA		14	16	9	13
48	MONTANA		15	6	14	12
49	WYOMING		9	16	8	11
50	VERMONT	9	12	10	11	11
51	MAINE	7	13	8	10	10
52	PUERTO RICO			n/a	n/a	0
53	VIRGIN ISLANDS	n/a		n/a	n/a	0
	TOTALS	1368	1350	1231	1385	1342