Former Miss USA contender blooms where she’s planted
Published: Sun, August 14, 2016 @ 12:02 a.m.
Former Miss USA contender blooms where she’s planted
By JoAnn Jones
Special to The Vindicator
“I’ve never been bored in my life. I don’t know how people can say there’s nothing to do.”
So says Dolores Iannucci, the 1956 Miss New Jersey and runner-up to Miss USA, who was featured in a 2006 story in The Vindicator. Iannucci has made Youngstown her home for the past 57 years, and the 10 years since that story appeared have not slowed down the 82-year-old at all.
Iannucci left New Jersey and New York City, where she had worked for a few years, to marry Angelo Iannucci, a Boardman High School graduate and rugby player who went on to graduate from Rutgers University. She said she was a secretary at the university when she met him, and the couple celebrated their 59th anniversary in March.
“I met him at a fraternity party,” she said. “He told me he had already spotted me. It was like a Hollywood movie. He was in the Air Force for a couple years, and then we returned to Youngstown so he could work in the family business, Superior Beverage.
“I was used to the ocean in New Jersey and things like the Metropolitan Opera in New York City,” she said, “so it was different here. But I found out people who lived here all their lives didn’t know what they had.”
“We have the No. 1 American art museum in the Butler,” she said. “There’s the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, and we have one of the most beautiful parks with Mill Creek Park and the Fellows Riverside Gardens. The university, the hospitals ... they’re all good.”
After suffering a heart attack in 1993, Iannucci was involved for 20 years with Mended Hearts, serving as the president of Chapter 7 in Youngstown. She also said she has been on the executive leadership team of the local chapter of the American Heart Association where she participates in the Heart Walk each year to raise funds. Her goal this year is to raise $3,000 for the Sept. 17 walk.
“I do my survivor story for the Heart Association’s speakers’ guild,” Iannucci said.
She is a community representative on the board of Opera Western Reserve, and a member of the Ohio Cultural Alliance, Italian Education Foundation and the Italian Cinquanta Club, a supportive religious group, among other organizations. She also ran the local Ohio Junior Miss program for many years.
For 35 years, she has belonged to the advisory board for the Oblate Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Hubbard, which provided “one of the highlights of my entire life.”
Iannucci traveled to Italy for six weeks in 1990 with the organization and was able to shake the hand of Pope John Paul II. She has a commemorative photo of her meeting the pope, with whom she shares a May 18 birthday.
She attends St. Christine Church in Youngstown.
As an active member of these organizations, Iannucci said she believes giving without wanting to receive is the best gift a person can have.
“Your country, your town – you can’t survive without volunteers,” she said.
Talking about the pageants, she said she was concerned about the fees and sponsorships that are now required for the contestants to enter. Everyone involved with the pageants she entered, she said, volunteered their time.
“I never spent one cent for anything,” she said of her pageant days.
She also explained the difference between the Miss USA pageant, in which she participated, and the Miss America pageant, in which she could have participated but chose not to.
“Miss America is a scholarship pageant, but the Miss USA winner gets a chance to go on and compete in the Miss Universe contest,” she said. “The Miss USA contest doesn’t have a talent competition, either.”
According to the Miss America website, the winner receives a $50,000 scholarship and the total number of scholarships given for one contest is $303,000.
As she looked at the photographs and memorabilia from the 1956 Miss USA pageant in Long Beach, Calif., she said the pageants she entered were from a brief period of her life from age 19 to 22, before she married and had three children.
“Our Catalina swimsuits were wool,” she said with a grin. “Now those bikinis they wear are little more than G-strings.
“But now the contestants have platforms, which I love, because they are the causes of today.”
According to the Miss USA website, the current Miss USA, Deshauna Barber of Washington, D.C., is an Army Reserve officer and has taken post-traumatic stress disorder for soldiers returning home from deployments as her platform.
Iannucci said she was happy that the Miss Teen USA pageant (sponsored by the Miss Universe organization) had removed the swimsuit competition this year and replaced it with an athletic wear competition.
“I don’t think they should be in bikinis and high heels,” she said of the young women who are 15 to 19 years old.
However, she said she didn’t think the swimsuit competition would be removed for Miss USA and Miss Universe because “the whole concept internationally would have to change.”
Iannucci, who watches the Miss USA, Miss Universe and Miss America pageants on television, said she does her own charting to select the finalists.
“I’ve been wrong a few times, but I pretty much pick out the finalists,” she said.
Iannucci reads The Vindicator every morning and completes the crossword puzzle to help keep her mind sharp. She said she always has a book nearby if she is watching TV or a movie. She said she is quite fond of the public library’s special delivery service.
“The Youngstown library delivers right to my door,” she said. “They have a list of your likes and they bring books or movies in a zippered bag.”
Walking down her long driveway to her mailbox three times a day to get her newspaper, mail and library books is part of her daily routine to keep moving and stay healthy. She also plays bridge at least once a week and knits items that she gives to people as gifts.
“To live a long, full life, you have to be happy within yourself,” Iannucci said. “Life is a journey. Your attitude for that day, that moment ... why not laugh? It’s the best medicine in the world.
“Take care of your inner beauty, your spiritual beauty, and that will reflect in your face,” she added. “We have the face we created over the years. Every bad deed, every bad fault will show on your face. God can give us beauty, and genes can give us our features, but whether that beauty remains or changes is determined by our thoughts and deeds.”
- See more at: http://www.vindy.com/news/2016/aug/14/former-miss-usa-contender-blooms-where-s/#sthash.1PnLaDbP.dpufSpecial to The Vindicator
“I’ve never been bored in my life. I don’t know how people can say there’s nothing to do.”
So says Dolores Iannucci, the 1956 Miss New Jersey and runner-up to Miss USA, who was featured in a 2006 story in The Vindicator. Iannucci has made Youngstown her home for the past 57 years, and the 10 years since that story appeared have not slowed down the 82-year-old at all.
Iannucci left New Jersey and New York City, where she had worked for a few years, to marry Angelo Iannucci, a Boardman High School graduate and rugby player who went on to graduate from Rutgers University. She said she was a secretary at the university when she met him, and the couple celebrated their 59th anniversary in March.
“I met him at a fraternity party,” she said. “He told me he had already spotted me. It was like a Hollywood movie. He was in the Air Force for a couple years, and then we returned to Youngstown so he could work in the family business, Superior Beverage.
“I was used to the ocean in New Jersey and things like the Metropolitan Opera in New York City,” she said, “so it was different here. But I found out people who lived here all their lives didn’t know what they had.”
“We have the No. 1 American art museum in the Butler,” she said. “There’s the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, and we have one of the most beautiful parks with Mill Creek Park and the Fellows Riverside Gardens. The university, the hospitals ... they’re all good.”
After suffering a heart attack in 1993, Iannucci was involved for 20 years with Mended Hearts, serving as the president of Chapter 7 in Youngstown. She also said she has been on the executive leadership team of the local chapter of the American Heart Association where she participates in the Heart Walk each year to raise funds. Her goal this year is to raise $3,000 for the Sept. 17 walk.
“I do my survivor story for the Heart Association’s speakers’ guild,” Iannucci said.
She is a community representative on the board of Opera Western Reserve, and a member of the Ohio Cultural Alliance, Italian Education Foundation and the Italian Cinquanta Club, a supportive religious group, among other organizations. She also ran the local Ohio Junior Miss program for many years.
For 35 years, she has belonged to the advisory board for the Oblate Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Hubbard, which provided “one of the highlights of my entire life.”
Iannucci traveled to Italy for six weeks in 1990 with the organization and was able to shake the hand of Pope John Paul II. She has a commemorative photo of her meeting the pope, with whom she shares a May 18 birthday.
She attends St. Christine Church in Youngstown.
As an active member of these organizations, Iannucci said she believes giving without wanting to receive is the best gift a person can have.
“Your country, your town – you can’t survive without volunteers,” she said.
Talking about the pageants, she said she was concerned about the fees and sponsorships that are now required for the contestants to enter. Everyone involved with the pageants she entered, she said, volunteered their time.
“I never spent one cent for anything,” she said of her pageant days.
She also explained the difference between the Miss USA pageant, in which she participated, and the Miss America pageant, in which she could have participated but chose not to.
According to the Miss America website, the winner receives a $50,000 scholarship and the total number of scholarships given for one contest is $303,000.
As she looked at the photographs and memorabilia from the 1956 Miss USA pageant in Long Beach, Calif., she said the pageants she entered were from a brief period of her life from age 19 to 22, before she married and had three children.
“Our Catalina swimsuits were wool,” she said with a grin. “Now those bikinis they wear are little more than G-strings.
“But now the contestants have platforms, which I love, because they are the causes of today.”
According to the Miss USA website, the current Miss USA, Deshauna Barber of Washington, D.C., is an Army Reserve officer and has taken post-traumatic stress disorder for soldiers returning home from deployments as her platform.
Iannucci said she was happy that the Miss Teen USA pageant (sponsored by the Miss Universe organization) had removed the swimsuit competition this year and replaced it with an athletic wear competition.
“I don’t think they should be in bikinis and high heels,” she said of the young women who are 15 to 19 years old.
However, she said she didn’t think the swimsuit competition would be removed for Miss USA and Miss Universe because “the whole concept internationally would have to change.”
Iannucci, who watches the Miss USA, Miss Universe and Miss America pageants on television, said she does her own charting to select the finalists.
“I’ve been wrong a few times, but I pretty much pick out the finalists,” she said.
Iannucci reads The Vindicator every morning and completes the crossword puzzle to help keep her mind sharp. She said she always has a book nearby if she is watching TV or a movie. She said she is quite fond of the public library’s special delivery service.
“The Youngstown library delivers right to my door,” she said. “They have a list of your likes and they bring books or movies in a zippered bag.”
Walking down her long driveway to her mailbox three times a day to get her newspaper, mail and library books is part of her daily routine to keep moving and stay healthy. She also plays bridge at least once a week and knits items that she gives to people as gifts.
“To live a long, full life, you have to be happy within yourself,” Iannucci said. “Life is a journey. Your attitude for that day, that moment ... why not laugh? It’s the best medicine in the world.
“Take care of your inner beauty, your spiritual beauty, and that will reflect in your face,” she added. “We have the face we created over the years. Every bad deed, every bad fault will show on your face. God can give us beauty, and genes can give us our features, but whether that beauty remains or changes is determined by our thoughts and deeds.”
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