By Piper Gallagher, Senior Reporter
The Miss Cinderella Pageant is returning to the Northwestern stage this week!
This pageant that will feature 16 girls from local Oklahoma high schools has been a long standing feature in NWOSU’s homecoming festivities for decades.
Miss Cinderella offers scholarship opportunities to high school senior girls that represent their school in the pageant.
Contestants also get to participate in the homecoming parade.
The pageant opens up with a talent portion of the show on Thursday, October 23rd.
From there the girls will compete again on Friday in interviews and evening gown.
The top five talent winners from the day before will showcase those again on Friday night.
Jessica Davis, current Miss Northwestern and a previous Miss Cinderella winner in 2023 will be emcee for Thursday night.
On Friday, Tessa Dorrell, Current Miss Oklahoma, will emcee for Friday’s competition.
“I think it’s nice because we’ve had several girls be in the Miss Cinderella pageant and come to school here, which is a great recruiting tool to get them here because they get to be on campus and enjoy homecoming and see what Northwestern has to offer for them,” Lisa Cline said.
Cline is the director for the Miss Cinderella pageant, and she is the director of LASSO here at Northwestern.
Every participant in the pageant gets a scholarship to attend Northwestern.
This fosters long lasting connections with high school senior girls and encourages them to call Northwestern home for their college years.
Many Miss Cinderella contestants and winners have attended Northwestern, and have since participated in the Miss Northwestern pageant that serves as a preliminary for the Miss Oklahoma competition.
While Miss Cinderella is not affiliated with the Miss Oklahoma pageant circuit, it gives young girls great experience in interview and pageant skills that they can use in the future.
“It’s a great opportunity for them to better themselves and then also just work on those life skills that will benefit them in the future,” Paige Fischer said.
Fischer is on the committee for Miss Cinderella and she is the pageant director for Miss Northwestern.
The Miss Cinderella Pagent allows young girls to dip their toes into the pagent lifestyle to see if they want to continue doing them in the future.
In a newsgram from November 2nd, 2022, the Alva Review Courier wrote that, “the most famous Miss Cinderella was Jane Jayroe of Laverne who won in 1963. In 1966 she was crowned Miss Oklahoma, and in 1967 she was named Miss America.”
The Miss Cinderella pageant began in 1952 and featured 11 girls from surrounding schools competing in a “queen contest.”
The pageant was later renamed to be Miss Cinderella in the late 50s.
It has since evolved from being an extra homecoming activity to being a distinguished opportunity for young girls.
The winner of Miss Cinderella will receive eight semesters of tuition and a room waiver, and the runner-ups receive tuition waivers as well.
The 73rd anniversary of Miss Cinderella kicks off this week. Admission is free with the purchase of a homecoming button.
Without a homecoming button it is $5 for students and $10 for adults.
Doors will open at 7pm on Thursday, and homecoming buttons will be available for purchase at the talent night.
On Friday the doors will open at 7:30 pm.
The events will be held in the Fellers Family Auditorium.
This will be the 73 anual Miss Cinderella Pageant.
The pageant is a way for high school students to get some small ammount of help if they decide to come to NWOSU.