The Miss Vincennes University Scholarship Pageant has been a staple at Vincennes University for many years, occurring yearly in November and sometimes coinciding with Veterans Day. This year, however, VU will not be holding the scholarship pageant.

The Miss America Organization implemented several changes to their program which not only required new rules and regulations but also a slight name change, dubbing the refined program the Miss America Organization 2.0.

With all the time necessary to practice and prepare for the show and no rule book to follow, the directors of the competition were forced to push the date until November 2019.

The Trailblazer interviewed Cindy Beaman, director of university events and executive director of the Miss VU competition for three years, and asked her to address these developments.

“There’s some new language that we use, things like that[…]They’re looking at the total woman. We’ve done away with the bathing suit so it’s more of what’s up here, in your head,” Beaman gestured, “how you can be an ambassador for your university, for your state, for the country.”

In addition to replacing “pageant” with “competition,” the Miss America Organization 2.0 has removed the swimsuit portion of the competition and added a more in depth onstage question in an effort to make it more comprehensive and focusing more on talent, platforms of what each candidate stands for and speaking capabilities.

Beaman said there will be more speaking opportunities next year, when the competition will continue as regularly scheduled in November 2019,  giving each woman the chance to promote her own social impact statement.

Concerning the change of date in the Miss VU Scholarship Competition, Beaman explained that with new rules comes new rule books and she did not receive the updated guidelines until recently.

“One of the things that Miss Vincennes University has always done that is different from most competitions in Indiana is that we put on a full-blown show. We have months of practice, when we have a large group we have preliminaries, we work with the girls, we have workshops about poise and grace and how to speak and we practice questions,” Beaman noted, also saying they involve many broadcasting, theatre and public relations majors to help with the show.

While students that are graduating at the end of the fall semester and in the coming spring semester will not be able to vie for the title of Miss VU, those between the ages of 18-25 can still enter the Miss Ohio Valley and Miss Northwest Territory Scholarship Competitions next fall.

Evelyn Crowley, pre-med, Vincennes, reigning Miss VU also mentioned the changes being implemented and added, “I know a lot of girls were really looking forward to the program this year. Hopefully, come this time next year, the program will be back and better than ever! This program has been an amazing experience and I am really looking forward to crowning the next Miss VU!”

For more information on all of these programs contact Cindy Beaman at [email protected] for Miss VU or Tammy Bosecker at [email protected] for Miss Ohio Valley or Miss Northwest Territory.