Miss Virginia Crowned Miss America
Miss Virginia Nicole Johnson, a 24-year-old diabetic who wears an insulin pump on her hip, won the Miss America Pageant on Saturday.
Johnson, a graduate of the University of South Florida who recently completed work on a master's degree in journalism at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., sang "That's Life" for her talent offering.
She plans to spotlight diabetes awareness during the 20,000-mile-a-month national speaking tour she will make as Miss America 1999.
She gasped when her name was announced at Convention Hall and looked up at the ceiling before accepting a crystal scepter and being crowned by outgoing Miss America Kate Shindle.
Miss North Carolina Kelli Bradshaw was first runner-up and Miss Florida Lissette Gonzalez was second runner-up. Rounding out the top five were Miss Missouri Deborah McDonald and Miss Kentucky Chera-Lyn Cook.
"My goodness, this doesn't seem real. I can't believe it," a breathless Johnson said in a news conference held off stage immediately after the crowning.
She doesn't give up easily, either: She competed in the Miss Virginia pageant four times before winning it this year on her fifth try. "It was a perfect way for me to finance my master's degree and to pay off my college loans."
A resident of Roanoke, Va., she works as a writer and producer for 700 Club promotions and wants to be a national news anchor and national diabetes spokeswoman.
She said diabetes, which she said she contracted at age 19 as the result of a virus, has helped make her a stronger person.
"I'm a normal girl. I'm not perfect. And Miss America should not be perfect. I have something wrong with me. You can't see it. But everybody has something in their life ... everybody has a stumbling block, everybody has to figure out how to get around that stumbling block."
One potential controversy was eliminated early in the evening: Miss Ohio Cheya Watkins, who was the focus of a pageant investigation into reports that she lied about her academic record, did not make the top 10.
She claimed to be a freshman at University of Cincinnati, but officials there said they have no record of her. She would have been stripped of any title or money if pageant organizers found reason to disqualify her, said Leonard Horn, chief executive of the Miss America Organization.
Only once has a winner been dethroned: Miss America 1984 Vanessa Williams was forced to resign after nude pictures of her appeared in Penthouse magazine during her reign.
New wrinkles in the pageant telecast included new hosts Boomer Esiason and Meredith Vieira, "up close and personal" videos of the contestants and a parade of states in which they were allowed to wear any kind of clothing they chose.
The Miss Ohio controversy wasn't the only one in the two-week buildup. Three judges with close ties to Oklahoma were replaced amid complaints that Miss Oklahoma Juli Payne would get preferential treatment.
But Payne won a talent preliminary anyway.
The Miss America winner gets a $40,000 college scholarship, a year's worth of travel and speaking engagements and about $200,000 in appearance fees.
Last year's winner, former Miss Illinois Kate Shindle, championed AIDS prevention during her year and won praise from many AIDS advocates for her aggressive advocacy work.
She advocated government-funded needle exchanges and school condom distribution as ways to stem the spread of HIV.
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