Press Queen
When I was an undergrad at NYU Heights I was a commuter student, but stayed on campus after classes as much as I could to enjoy the extracurricular college life. (See Ghostwriting in the Family, The Fortune Cookie Candidate and Theater Dreams)
Steve, the editor of the school paper, was a friend and I’d often stop in his office to watch in awe as his staff turned out the paper every day. It may not have rivaled the Columbia Spectator or the Harvard Crimson, but the Heights Daily News was a reputable university paper with much to cover in those turbulent ’60s.
The Heights, located on a small, leafy campus in the Bronx, was comprised of only two NYU schools – Arts and Science, and Engineering. Both had been all-male until a year before I entered, and so our cohort of women was still quite a novelty, and Steve thought a contest to chose Miss Heights Daily News would be fun and a good way to promote the paper. He asked me to enter the contest. I did, and at the risk of sounding immodest, I must say I won.
Among my laurels were a pair of theatre tickets and 2 cigars. I took my boyfriend to the show, but the smokes I gave to Steve, our wonderful editor-in-chief!
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
What a fun story, and lovely photo! We’ll refrain from commenting about the ethical issue of the editor who created the contest ending up with the cigars! P.S. I am very impressed that your school put out a daily newspaper (like Harvard and Columbia). That took tremendous commitment, and I’m sure the quality was good.
Thanx Dale, yes turning out a daily college paper is indeed an enormous commitment, it wasn’t hyperbole when I said I was in awe!
What a beauty you were! I love the prizes you won. Some day, we will have to trade college beauty pageant secrets (LOL).
Thanx Laurie!
Lovely photo, Dana, and your honor was well deserved. I, too am impressed by the ability to put out a daily paper. Didn’t know that NYU had been all male until the 60s! By the time I went to college, the idea of a beauty contest would have been cause for a riot, so it is fascinating to see how much changed in such a short time.
Thanx Mare.
Only the two schools on the Heights campus up in the Bronx had been all-male, not the NYU schools down at Washington Square.
It was the early 60s and I guess beauty pageants weren’t yet politically incorrect!
Indeed, a very glamourous picture! I noticed the prize also included hair styling and roses. It must have been challenging to be in that first wave of women admitted to The Heights, and I can imagine you did it very well. indeed Kudos.
Thanx Khati!
Dear brown-eyed freshman. What a lovely photo and a great honor, especially as a first-wave woman landing on the NYU shores. Fully armed but not a hair out of place!
Thanx Charles, yes I guess those times and places were where the battles began!
Love this story, Dana! So glad you shared the news clipping with us – you were a knockout! Did you ever use the 3 months of hairstyling? I agree with Dale about the editor and the cigars, but what a strange prize that was, to give cigars to a beauty queen. What were they thinking?
Thanx Suzy!
I don’t remember using the hairstyling, but surely enjoyed the roses and theatre tix, and I hope Steve enjoyed the cigars!
I would guess those motley prizes were solicited as donations from local businesses in support of the school!
Dana, although we’re not supposed to care about these things (or mention them), I have to concur: knockout picture! A charming, quirky snapshot of that early ’60s time.
On a sociological note, your story reminds me that the beatification of beauty as the ultimate female virtue continued past the mid-60s. My freshman face book of women, edited by men, contained bogus pictures of girls with sophomoric names like “Helen Mia Partment.” Sigh. Back then I thought it was funny, but by senior year I did not. Long live the Press Queen, however!
Thanx Susan.
You’re right of course, we never do hear about the female gaze, do we?
Dana, after a career in journalism, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of anyone getting the honor of press queen! But hey, why not? Why should the different athletic teams have their princesses and queens but not the Fourth Estate? A much belated congratulations!
Thanx Jim! Belated indeed, it was (gulp) 60 years ago!