So Bye, Bye, Miss America

The management of Boardwalk Hall has granted the Miss America organization its request to go elsewhere with their little pageant, which is now going to be held in January rather than September, and now somewhere other than its home since 1920 - Atlantic City, New Jersey. This sets the stage for new corporate benefactor CMT to move the pageant to Nashville, which is the most likely scenario. (And we were worried about Disney moving the whole shebang to Orlando.)

There was a time when Atlantic City pretty much just had Miss America as a source of local pride - that, and the distinction of lending its street names to the Monopoly board. But now, at a time when Atlantic City has become something much more, with its myriad shopping and entertainment options, the city is just going to let Miss America go away quietly.

And perhaps, after all, it's just as well. Bert Parks, and much of what Miss America stood for at one time, have been dead for years. There was a time where being Miss America really meant something, and many of those ladies became huge celebrities in their own right. Names like Bess Myerson, Lee Meriwether, Mary Ann Mobley and Susan Powell became household words. And Vanessa Williams became a huge star in spite of being Miss America - a disgraced Miss America who had previously posed nude for photographs which were published in a national magazine.

While the Miss America organization runs a robust scholarship program and fosters awareness of many worthy causes through its platform program, it's not the stepping stone to stardom it was years ago. Can you name any of the last 10 Miss Americas? Do you even know who Miss America is right now? Unless you have a very personal connection to one of them, you probably can't.

But you probably know who won every "Survivor" since it began.