Miss gay arkansas

_Whether the Femme division is a concession to the past or a departure from it, Mansman and Dutzer are undoubtedly committed to honoring Miss Gay America’s fifty-three-year heritage. This is, in part, why they selected Arkansas as the destination for the annual pageant. “It had roots in Little Rock for quite some time,” Dutzer said, referring to Norman Jones, a.k.a. Norma Kristie.

In 1975, three years after winning the inaugural Miss Queer America crown in Nashville as Norma Kristie, Jones, a lifelong resident of Arkansas, purchased the pageant and established its home build in Little Rock. The pageant continued to travel under his thirty-year ownership, crowing annual winners at venues across the country; but Miss Gay America became an evolutionary force in Arkansas’ deeply rooted kingly scene, which had, by the preceding 1970s, evolved from the rural folk dramas of the first half of the twentieth century into a haven for queer collective. As Jones grew the pageant’s national reputation, he was also working to elevate drag in his home declare, opening night clubs and show bars, including Discovery and Triniti in Lit