Carrie Wintle talks about Miss America Pageant memories
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HURON — It’s been two weeks, but the memories of competing at the Miss America Pageant are still flooding the thoughts of Huron’s Carrie Wintle.
Wintle, 24, competed at the Atlantic City, N.J. pageant earlier this month, with an extensive list of home-state supporters, and while she didn’t get the job of Miss America 2019, realizing a dream more than 10 years in the making was worth it.
“You know, I still have a hard time describing it,” she said with a mile-high wide grin and sparkles in her eyes. “Becoming Miss South Dakota and competing at Miss America is something that I have dreamed about since I began competing. To experience it … I just can’t describe it! I guess in some way it is like being in a magical snow globe. It’s real, but still magical. It’s surreal.”
It was actually the second time Wintle had been in Atlantic City for the Pageant, and her third Miss America overall. “I went when I was Miss South Dakota’s Outstanding Teen in 2008,” she noted, “to support ‘my’ Miss South Dakota, Alexandra (Hoffman) Bisson. That pageant was in Las Vegas. I also went to the Pageant in 2014, in Atlantic City, to support Merideth Gould when she competed.”
Wintle said she roomed with Miss Vermont, Julia Crane, who was voted Miss Congeniality at this year’s Pageant. “She is the perfect choice for Miss Congeniality,” Wintle said. “She is warm and outgoing and I swear I have never laughed so much in my life. It (the award) was well deserved.”
Wintle also received a well-deserved award at this year’s Pageant, that of the Miss America Women in Business Scholarship Award and the $5,000 scholarship that went with it. Four contestants were chosen by their respective resumes, and then those four were intensely interviewed by a panel.
“I’m very proud of the Women in Business Award,” she said. “In large part because it recognizes the schooling I have had in my field.” Wintle graduated from USD with her undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Mathematics, and earned her Masters in Accounting and Finance from Vanderbilt this spring.
Her education helped earn her the award, and education was an emphasis for all of the contestants this year. During the preliminary introductions, each contestant was encouraged to share her educational background and field of study.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CARRIE WINTLE
Carrie Wintle performs on the piano for her talent competition at Miss America. From all of the contestants, Wintle was chosen by a special panel as the winner of the Miss America Women in Business Award, and the $5,000 scholarship that goes with it.
Next having a large number of supporters around her at the Miss America Pageant was “priceless” to Miss South Dakota, Carrie Wintle. She is near the center in the back row.