It was two years ago that the Miss Minnesota Scholarship Program left Austin, its home of 33 years.

Thursday, June 22, 2000

It was two years ago that the Miss Minnesota Scholarship Program left Austin, its home of 33 years. At the time, Executive Director Sandra Krause said the move to St. Cloud was to "gain renewed enthusiasm and funding for the educational scholarship program."

Although Krause praised the businesses and volunteers in Austin, the impression was that the executive director thought the program could do better somewhere else. If the proof is in the pudding, then many believe Austin had much better ingredients.

"Austin should be pretty darned proud," long-time Miss Minnesota and Miss Austin committee member Donna Lessard said. "The town of St. Cloud has not received this (the Miss Minnesota competition) well as far as I could tell. There wasn’t a single sentence in the newspaper about it before the competition. They got nowhere near the coverage or the attendance that the competition used to get when it was here."

Her state experience also reinforced to this year’s Miss Austin, Elliott Sailors, just how good the Miss Austin program is.

"Austin is awesome," Sailors said. "Miss Minnesota won $6,000; I won $6,000. We have amazing support here, particularly for a community of this size."

Miss Austin’s top three contestants did as well or better financially than those in Miss Minnesota. While the title winners received the same amount of money, in Austin the runner-up got $1,800, while the Miss Minnesota runner-up got $1,200.

There was a bright side to the move for Austin – it let the Miss Austin program take the limelight, the experience and the local scholarship dollars that had formerly been directed at Miss Minnesota.

Ranked third nationwide in number of scholarship dollars, the Miss Austin program has as much or more support locally than the Miss Minnesota scholarship program does statewide. It is the largest local program in the state, and had more contestants this year – 13 – than Miss Minnesota – 10. The facilities at Knowlton Auditorium also are better than those at Ritchie Auditorium in St. Cloud, according to Lessard.

As to the future of the state pageant, no one knows yet. Krause did not return a call from the Herald. The state pageant organization still owes the city of Austin $7,720 from several years ago, when the competition was still held at Riverside Arena. Only $2,585 of that is principal still outstanding; the rest is interest.