Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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“Jessica and I share a lot in common,” Van Vechten said. “We were both UNC journalism graduates. We were dancers, and dancers are rare in the Miss America pageant.”
Sharon Finch was Miss North Carolina in 1965. She won the title of Miss Thomasville in 1964. Jacobs was Miss Thomasville in 2006, and finished third runner-up in the Miss North Carolina pageant that year. Last year the Ledford graduate won the Miss North Carolina pageant after entering it as Miss Central Carolina.
While it has been awhile since Van Vechten has competed for Miss America — and she has had quite an interesting and exciting life since — she still enjoys closely following the Miss America pageant each year.
“When I was in the sixth grade Miss America came and stayed at our house for a week,” said Van Vechten, whose father was the late Harry Browne Finch. “I never was interested in beauty contests in high school. I rode horses and played pivot basketball. I wasn’t a cheerleader, a majorette, on the homecoming court or anything like that.”
In 1964, the Miss Thomasville pageant needed at least eight contestants to be considered a preliminary for the Miss America pageant. That year, the organization found itself short on contestants. A local pageant official asked Sharon Finch, who had graduated from Thomasville High School, and she replied, “Sure, anything for the local Jaycees.”
“Then I won the state and said, ‘This is getting out of control,’” Van Vechten recalled. “But I knew it was a wonderful experience. It was an opportunity to meet interesting people — and make a positive impression on them.”
Things really got moving then.
“I did 471 appearances in 365 days,” Van Vechten remembered of her year as Miss North Carolina. “My mother and I were in the car 77,000 miles in North Carolina. We went through a bunch of Oldsmobiles.”
Oldsmobile was a sponsor of Miss North Carolina in those days.
At the time Sharon Finch won the Miss North Carolina Pageant, she was a student at Connecticut College. Only men were allowed to attend the University of North Carolina in those days, except for women majoring in medical technology.
“We went to the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City and drove to Connecticut College to notify the school that I wasn’t coming back and pick up things that I’d left,” Van Vechten recalled. Her experience as Miss North Carolina allowed the Thomasville native, who had been a dance major at Connecticut, to appreciate public relations as a vocation.
“I had done public relations all year as Miss North Carolina, representing Oldsmobile, the Jaycees and other sponsors,” she said.
After participating in the last Miss America contest that was not televised in color and taking a year off from college to serve as Miss North Carolina, Finch returned to college. By then, UNC had dropped its barring of women in academics and she transferred to her home-state university and changed her major to public relations.
Her degree in that subject, along with the prestige of having been Miss North Carolina — in addition to other qualities that have enabled her to succeed in the profession — have enabled Van Vechten to enjoy a rewarding career. Upon graduation from UNC in 1967, she joined BBDO, one of New York’s largest advertising agencies, and worked on the Campbell Soup account. Later she worked for a Miami agency on the Bahamas tourism account. She then moved back to New York to become public relations director of Revlon Worldwide. The talented PR executive moved up from there to ICPR, which was then the largest entertainment company in America. This job allowed her to work with Hollywood stars, such as Carol Burnette, Jimmy Stewart, George Hamilton, Dick Van Dyke and David Niven.
“It was really great to be out in Hollywood, where I cvould be on the sets of movies, such as ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ and be at the Academy Awards, as well as have a hot line to Paris and work on projects with the chairman of the board,” Van Vechten said. “I’ve had my own consulting company for over 20 years now. I enjoy the diversity and the ability to help small businesses. My clients range from restaurants to hotels to arts organizations.”
Van Vechten returned to Chapel Hill in 1985. She has spent some time in Charleston, S.C., and New York since then, but most of it, including the last six years, has been in the city where she finished college. Her company is called Van Vechten Connections.
Van Vechten obviously has no “sour grapes” toward the contestant who beat her out for Miss America during her competition in Atlantic City.
“I introduced her to her husband,” Van Vechten said of Rhonda Van Dyke. “She married my former Methodist minister in Coral Gables, Fla.”
Vechten still comes to Thomasville on a regular basis to visit her mother, who now lives at Piedmont Crossing. And she has very fond memories of the town she grew up in.
“I’ll never forget returning to Thomasville from Raleigh the day after I won the Miss North Carolina pageant,” Van Vechten said. “People had just lined the streets on both sides all around the railroad tracks. They were all cheering. To this day, I still get choked up thinking about it.”
Staff Writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 230, ore at reid@tvilletimes.com.