Jane Jayroe: Oklahoma native reflects on her Miss America win,

 by Kathryn McNutt  Published: September 11, 2016 12:00 AM CDT

Jane Jayroe remembers the moment that changed her life in an instant as if it were yesterday.

No one expected it, but 50 years ago this month, Jayroe was crowned Miss America 1967.

Miss California was supposed to win, Jayroe said, recalling how sophisticated, beautiful and talented she was. The Miss Oklahoma Pageant director didn't even attend the event.

“I still kind of have to pinch myself that it happened,” Jayroe said Wednesday before flying to Atlantic City for this year's pageant and the festivities celebrating her 50th anniversary.

+14photos

Jayroe was honored Thursday, the final day of preliminary competition, and featured in Saturday's Boardwalk Parade. Sunday night, she will witness the crowning of Miss America 2017.

“I have enormous gratitude for what Miss America brought to me,” she said. “The Miss America win put my life on a totally different path in a second; in one snap of the fingers it changed the path of my life.”

Communication skills

The 19-year-old Miss Oklahoma from Laverne had moved into her dorm room at Oklahoma City University before the pageant and expected to be back in a few days. But her sophomore year was put on hold.

Instead, she boarded a plane for the first time ever and spent the year traveling the nation. At the first stop, her chaperone told her she would be expected to say a few words.

Jane Jayroe to be recognized at the 2016 Miss America Competition

“I was a shy person and had never had skills in speaking in front of people or communicating,” Jayroe said. “I'm quite confident that I was really bad, but I did that every day as Miss America, and you get a lot better when you do something every day.”

Jayroe credits the skills accumulated through meeting people and speaking day after day with preparing her for a career in communications. She was a broadcast journalist for 17 years in Oklahoma City and Dallas, director of the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, a marketer for the Oklahoma Health Center, and today is an author and speaker.

“Everything I've done has really been communication skills.”

The scholarship money she won allowed her to graduate with two degrees and no debt. She earned a bachelor's degree in music at OCU and a master's degree in humanities from the University of Tulsa.

“It's the great American story,” Jayroe said. “Miss America is that. It doesn't matter your background. What does matter is your willingness to work hard, to be disciplined, to have a goal and to have a little bit of courage.”

‘I'm going to do this'

In 1966, Miss Oklahoma found the courage — in front of a huge national television audience — to conduct the orchestra and sing “One, Two, Three,” the pop hit by Len Barry.

No matter that she had never conducted an orchestra before.

“I had practiced it a million times in my house at Laverne, but I had never performed it live with an orchestra,” Jayroe said. “I just had a blast. I just had the most fun doing it.”

Singing in public while growing up — at weddings, school functions, community events — and playing basketball on a team that went to the state championship gave her confidence.

“A wonderful gift of pageants is it allows young women a chance — with just a little bit of courage — to sign up, to put themselves out there on the stage and say, ‘I'm going to do this,' ” Jayroe said.

They might win a scholarship, but they certainly will have fun and enjoy the camaraderie of the other contestants, she said.

Jayroe knows some people don't get it. She remembers, while seeing feminists burning bras in trash cans on the Boardwalk, thinking, “You don't get it. We're here earning scholarships and preparing for our future.

“For goodness sake, I understand the women's movement,” she said. “I lived it in many ways, as did many of my friends.”

The last was best

The most important thing the Miss America title brought Jayroe was the fulfillment of a dream, she said. Coming from a patriotic family with several World War II veterans, her hero was singer Jane Froman, who performed in United Service Organizations, better known as USO, shows.

“My whole goal in life was to do a USO show,” Jayroe said.

She said she chose to go to OCU because the university's Surrey Singers did USO tours.

Jayroe was “heartbroken” when she auditioned for the Surrey Singers and didn't make it. But within six months she was Miss America, and the door opened for a USO tour.

“The press kept asking me ‘What do you think about Vietnam?' I didn't know what to think about Vietnam; I just wanted to go,” she said. “I wanted to entertain our troops.”

The last two weeks as Miss America, Jayroe and five other state winners who had competed with her performed in Vietnam for two weeks.

“It, too, really changed our lives.”

Rough time, renewal

It wasn't all happily ever after.

A decade after her big moment in the spotlight came the lowest point in her life. She was 30, with no job, no money and a new baby.

“It was a really rough time,” said Jayroe, a time made worse by the burden she carried that she hadn't live up to what people expected of Miss America.

“Everything you do is in public. When I got divorced, another newspaper put it on the front page. It was just devastating to me, because the divorce was horrible, and then I just felt like I had just failed everyone,” she said. “I just felt like a big loser.”

But she found “there was a bottom to that well of sorrow.”

Her dad helped her get a job at the state Education Department, and “they decided they needed a little television show.” Jayroe did that show, which led her to audition for a job at KOCO-5 and the start of her broadcast career.

Since 1994, she has been married to real estate broker Gerald Gamble. In 2007, she was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

Today, it's the little things she savors.

Growing older gives “a sweetness and a preciousness” to life that you don't have when you are young, she said.

“The gift of aging is to appreciate today and find meaning. I really just find joy in the relationships that I have, in strengthening the faith that I have.”

Kathryn McNutt

Kathryn McNutt covers higher education for The Oklahoman and NewsOK. Since joining the staff in August 2000, she also has worked as the Breaking... read more ›

http://newsok.com/article/5517456