Tattooed National Guard Sergeant Theresa Vail Takes on Miss America

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Watch out Miss America, Miss Kansas Theresa Vail is here.

The Miss America pageant was started as way to keep tourists coming to Atlantic City after Labor Day in the 1920s.

With the rise of the feminist movement and the civil rights movement, the pageant has tried to change with the times and to portray the contestants as something more than air headed, wholesome, white women whose goals in life are to either be a rocket scientist or a model, with the underlying emphasis on helping to bring world peace.

In the 1960s, the contest eliminated rule number seven, according to PBS’s 2011 documentary “Miss America,” which required contestants to be “in good health and white.” Professional women began competing in the 1970s as part of the pageants continuing effort to evolve.

But nothing previously adapted by the “scholarship” pageant will change perceptions as much as when Miss Kansas Theresa Vail steps on the stage in her bathing suit this weekend.

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