Page 36 - Sun Rays_February 2016
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Sitting Pretty
By Jaime Calder
PHOTO BY JAIME CALDER
Singer, actor and director MJ Hunter was only 19 years old when an unknown party nominated her for a beauty contest in
Macon, Georgia. Though she had no previous pageant experience, MJ won, and went on to be crowned Miss Georgia 1954.
As far as MJ Hunter is concerned, it MJ was stunned – she hadn’t even a year-long hiatus to fulfill her royal
was all a fluke. known there was a contest to begin with, duties, Neva Jane had returned to
and had never given beauty pageants Wesleyan just as MJ was enrolling. The
“I think it was in early spring. I got a much consideration. “It wasn’t even in campus gushed over her return.
call, ‘MJ, some gentlemen want to see my bailiwick,” she says.
you down in the office.’” “The buzz around school was, ‘Oh! Neva
But at Wesleyan, talk of crowns was in Jane is back,’” recalls MJ, who knew
A freshman at Wesleyan College in the air. A historic women’s college with the beauty queen only in passing, but
Macon, Georgia, MJ – better known what could be, as MJ puts it, a “highly was awed by her classmate. “She was
then as Mary Jane Doar – was a good controlled” environment, Wesleyan was gorgeous and talented and had a real
student and talented singer. But as she proud to have turned out not one, but presence. She really deserved to be Miss
walked across campus, she had no idea two Miss Macons in a row, Neva Jane America.” Leaning in conspiratorially,
why she had been summoned. Langley in 1952 and Lucia Hutchinson MJ adds, “I’ve watched the pageant
in 1953. Both had gone on to win the through the years, and some of them…
“I didn’t know anything about anything,” state competition and, at the age of 19, ehh. But Neva Jane was really terrific.”
she laughs. Neva Jane became the first Georgia
woman to be crowned Miss America. Standing in the Wesleyan office, MJ
In the office stood two representatives of scrambled to respond to the Jaycees.
the Macon Jaycees. They informed MJ “When I went to school there, everyone
that she had been recommended for the knew that Wesleyan had the Miss “All I could say was, ‘Oh, gosh, I’ll have
Miss Macon Pageant. As hosts of the America,” recalls MJ. After taking to ask my mother!’ There was some
event, they wanted to know if she would expense, as you had to buy a swimsuit
like to enter.
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34 | SUNRAYS FEBRUARY 2016
