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All 51 contestants in talent, swimsuit and evening gown.
Prelim winners:
Swimsuit: Mississippi, Ohio, Alabama
Talent: Ohio, Indiana, Texas..(read more at source)
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Talent – 0:00
Evening Gown – 2:29:01
Swimsuit – 3:14:03
Miss New Jersey was amazing. Considering it was the 1980’s and the calibre offered by most dance studios was pretty low, this was insanely good.
Miss Indiana altered her dance and twirl moves in the preliminaries. She did more neck and hand twirls.
MISSISSIPPI was the whole package when it comes to talent and the whole package when it came to the competition…. Now hear me out….. She might not be the best vocalist but everything about this song was right. I think people miss that when they look at new and old talents. You can have an opera singer who is vocally perfect but has not emotion or feeling. You can have a pianist who is technically perfect but chose the wrong song and dress. From her hair, to her dress, to her gestures, to her perfectally coordinated movements, to her voice, to the song choice, it's about execution and the ability to suck you in to the whole song and never stop watching. And today what matters is she is a genuine person with a big heart for I have spent time with her. She went to Miss America to win, and every aspect of her was planned and designed perfectally, not to mention she is drop dead gorgeous. I remember being 15 and watching this and going wow. Miss Mississippi has a history of preparing their delegates well, down to their fingernail polish and earrings. So in my opinion she is the epÃtome of Miss America because she went there to compete and won because of her hard work, styling, coaching and preparation. You didn't go back then to make friends. You went to win. Today Miss America is a joke. But I love watching old school Miss Americas because it was a COMPETITION……and the girls "brought it" there is no doubt Susan set the bar of how to win Miss America for it's a competition…..not just talent, not just swimsuit, not just evening gown or interview. She had it all and that is why she won……look at Cheryl Pruitt, Diane Evans, Wanda Gayle Gettie, Kathy Manning who came before. Prepared down to every last detail…..I would also say she trademarked the small steps and the continual head turn during swimsuit and evening gown, and the iconic white supersuit(swimsuit) style…..watch how she never looked down coming down the stairs or picked up her dress like many……
Laurie Keller Miss Kentucky performed better on finals night I think, but she has always been in my top 10 over talents to ever grace the Miss America stage. How she didn’t win prelim talent blows my mind. Not only were her vocals beautiful but her dancing was just wow!!! The technique was amazing!
i agree mostly with slyh17. ky was best talent in group then i have fla then ohio. i don't know how nm was beaten in talent! ln was outstanding and my younger sister was state champ baton and 3rd in nationals., but in didn't turn loose of baton enough. all rest was perfect. tx was best talent in pagent, her gown killed her, backgammon board. nv was 2nd, sc 3rd. never realized how good sc was until saw prelim, ss ms and al killed but i must say al was 1st. her body was RIDICULOUS! bad year for gowns to me. not a 10 in top 10. tx nm in oh and ky were awful! ws was loud ms bulky and the fur? in was bad too mc and sc were good but not great. funny i was told tn won gown overall which have no prob, but she walked down the stairs like john wayne.
Miss Washington should have won preliminary talent award.
Do you have Miss Arizona America 1986? Diane Martin later became 2nd runner-up to Miss USA 1987. She is much more favored in this latest contest!
After watching entire prelims, I am very surprised Florida (Monica Farrell) was not in top ten and top five. Her talent was one of the best of the year and there can be no arguing her swimsuit was a solid 10. Her gown was beautiful and different from the others. I knew her and she was very intelligent and equally sweet. This is a reminder that contestants USED to look great in SS……….it had been many, many, many years since we saw a group of contestant who even could come close to this group of women in both SS and talent. What a loss!
I watched all of it! In 1985, they still used a ballot and each judge had to rank only 5 from each group. I did that with my ballot and it was HARD! Some groups had more than 5 strong talents and some had less than 5, so I see how the inequity came about and they moved to 1-10 scoring.Talent: KY FL NY OH MA group2 IN NM WA VT HI, group 3 TX, PA, NV MS SC.Swimsuit: AL OK AZ NM NH, group 2 MS C ND PA NV, group 3 NJ NC MI OH FL
2:22:37 Here is Miss America singing better than she did on pageant night.
Did they give out Prelim Awards for Evening Gown back in the 80s, 90s etc.