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“It breaks my heart,” said Kay Dickinson, hostess chairperson of the pageant and fellow member of its executive committee, along with Walker. “I’m very sad that he’s leaving us, but I do think he is walking away, realizing he’s been part of a magic for the Miss North Carolina Pageant for over 30 years.”
The parting is extremely amicable.
“I could not walk away from this experience without expressing to you my profound appreciation for your thoughtfulness, love, friendship and understanding over the past 30-plus years,” Walker wrote in his letter of resignation. “I have been so proud to have had the opportunity of serving the pageant and for the honor of working with you.”
Walker, a native of High Point, where he still resides, became active in the Miss North Carolina pageant as an accompanist in 1973. The High Point Central graduate also graduated from North Carolina School of the Arts, where he was an organ major. He currently serves as organist and choirmaster at First Presbyterian Church in Thomasville.
“It’s really serendipitous that I would retire from the pageant this year,” Walker said. “The first girl that I helped in the Miss North Carolina Pageant, Mausty Gray, was from High Point. The following year, Susan Griffin (Miss High Point 1974) won the Miss North Carolina Pageant and I traveled all over the state as her accompanist. The next year, Susan Lawrence (Miss Thomasville 1975) became Miss North Carolina and she later became Miss America Runner-Up. I almost had a stroke at the Miss North Carolina Pageant that year because I was so excited. Susan Griffin was giving up the crown and, the same night, another one of our students was becoming Miss North Carolina.”
This year Miss North Carolina, once again, came from High Point. In addition to Elizabeth Horton, who won the pageant as Miss Carolina Coast, Hannah Kiefer (Miss Forsyth County) was second runner-up and Jessica Jacobs (Miss Thomasville) was third runner-up. All of these women are actually hail from High Point.
Walker’s illustrious career has also included furniture design, but by the 1990s he was growing weary of that occupation. He made an important career change in1994.
“After I got burned out on design, I went to Bill Lowry, who, at the time, owned this dealership,” Walker said in his office at Thomasville Chevrolet Buick Pontiac, “I told him that I would take a job - any job - to get out of furniture. The only thing they had was car sales. I had never sold a car in my life, but he hired me on the spot.”
That was in June 1994. The following November, Lowry created the position of customer relations manger for the ex-furniture designer he had hired a few months before. Since then, the dealership has been purchased by Stamey Hardin, but Walker is still its customer relations manager.
“Josef’s been an outstanding asset for us over the years in a variety of different ways and mannerisms – not just within his job description, but also in the way he works with us through the community and helps out in the community,” Hardin said. “He’s been a great ambassador for the dealership over the years and we’re really proud to have him and appreciate all his contributions.”
One way Josef serves as an ambassador for the dealership is through the Thomasville Rotary Club, of which he became vice president Wednesday.
“I’m proud to be a Rotarian,” Walker said. “The Rotary Club does a great job to the community and making it a better place.”
One function of this club that Walker is extremely proud of is the scholarship it awards annually to a deserving high school student.
“This scholarship goes to local people who would not have funding to attend college if it were not for the Rotary Club,” Walker said proudly.
Speaking of pride and scholarships, Walker is proud of his long-time association with the Miss North Carolina Pageant because of its and other Miss America-related pageants’ contribution to education.
“These pageants give $45 million a year in scholarship aid to young women in America,” he said. “That’s the largest scholarship fund in the world for young women.”
In addition to accompanist, Walker has served as a vocal coach, piano-performance coach, a presenter of piano performance and vocal performance at judges’ seminars, a judge and a chief judge. He has been a member of the pageant’s executive committee for the past several years. In 2003, Walker was named the pageant’s Volunteer of the Year. In recent years, he would take a week’s vacation from his dealership in April to conduct a seminar for judges and another week in June to attend the pageant itself, for which he has been serving as publicity director.
“Josef is a very talented human being, who brought lots of knowledge about the performing arts to the pageant in many ways and has assisted many contestants through the years, so his spot on the executive committee will be very hard to fill,” Dickinson said. “He’s made a lot of good friends here over the years, and the pageant family just adores him.”
The feeling is mutual.
“The people involved in the state pageant system are really like family,” Walker said. “When we see each other every year, we pick up where we left off. I will miss the people who produce the Miss North Carolina Pageant because it’s not about the program; it’s about the girl. It’s about promoting the young woman who represents North Carolina for a year.”
Walker has been involved in 34 Miss North Carolina Pageants. There have been 69 held, so Walker has been part of almost half of them.
“I have never seen a young woman go through, from the local to the Miss North Carolina pageants, where she did not come out a very poised, positive person,” Walker said. “There’s no one who has ever won the title of Miss North Carolina, who could not survive any job interview situation and win the job.”
Staff Writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 230, or reid@tvilletimes.com.