Miss JSU pageant returns tonight to crown a new winner

Miranda Prescott, The Gadsden Times
·2 min read

Jacksonville State University will crown a new Miss JSU tonight at Leone Cole Auditorium on the university campus. The pageant will take place at 6 p.m.; admission is $5 for students with a valid ID and $10 for all other guests. Face masks are required for all in attendance.

Miss JSU is a preliminary pageant for the Miss America Organization, which awards scholarships to those crowned at the local, state and national levels. Whoever wins Miss JSU tonight will win a scholarship courtesy of the university, and will represent Jacksonville State in the Miss Alabama pageant this summer.

Competing for the crown tonight are:

  • Morgan Carroll, a business management major from Moulton;

  • Sophia Castillo, a pre-health biology major from Decatur;

  • Makayla Holden, a criminal justice and psychology double major from New Market;

  • Morgan Huckaby, a marketing major from Anniston;

  • Tavaria Johnson, a pre-health biology major from Childersburg;

  • Piper Jones, a psychology major from Ohatchee;

  • Kaylee Knight, a criminal justice major from Monroeville;

  • Ashley Moore, a nursing major from Birmingham;

  • Alana Watwood, a business major from Albertville;

The Miss Alabama pageant was canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused many preliminary pageants, including Miss JSU, to forgo a 2021 winner so those crowned in 2020 would be able to compete.

As a result, Camden Swatts was able to represent the university for a second time at Miss Alabama in June 2021, where she did not place. Previously, the native of Beauregard held the title of Miss JSU in 2017, when she placed in the top 12 on the state level. Swatts also placed fourth runner-up in 2018 as Miss Auburn-Opelika Area.

JSU has a “long history of success” at the Miss Alabama and Miss America pageants, according to university officials. Of those crowned as Miss Alabama, seven were formerly Miss JSUs, which included Miss America 1995, Heather Whitestone McCallum, and the first runner-up in the 1979 Miss America Pageant, Teresa Cheatham Crosby, a retired voice instructor at JSU.

Other Miss Alabamas from JSU include Ceil Jenkins Snow in 1971, Jane Rice Holloway in 1973, Julie Houston Elmer in 1977, Tammy Little Haynes in 1984 and Jamie Langley in 2007.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Miss JSU pageant to crown new winner, competitor for Miss Alabama