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29/10/2017
Dale Brumfield, Special to The News Leader Published 1:02 p.m. ET Oct. 29, 2017
Just before the dawn of World War II, an 18-year-old Waynesboro woman won the Miss Virginia Pageant, then went on to represent the commonwealth in the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Harrisonburg’s Rockingham Turkey Festival.
Jacquelyn Ruth McWin, a Roanoke native and one of five daughters of Alfred and Doris McWin, was an upcoming senior at Waynesboro High School when she finished fourth in the 1941 Miss Augusta pageant at Shenandoah Acres on Aug. 6.
Qualifying for the Miss Virginia Pageant held two days later on a cruise ship on the Potomac River, she bounced back and took first-place honors over 16 other young women, thus receiving a check for $150 and an invitation to participate in the national Miss America Pageant Sept. 6.
Dubbed the “million dollar baby from the 5 and 10 cent store” because of her employment at the downtown Waynesboro Roses store, Jacquelyn was listed as 5-ft 2-in tall and weighing “a dainty 105.”
The night before she left for Atlantic City and Miss America, however, she was formally invited over WAYB radio airwaves to be the Queen at the third-annual Rockingham Turkey Festival, Oct. 9-11. The invitation was made by festival director J.A. Garber and Waynesboro News-Virginian Editor Louis Spillman.
Jacquelyn traveled to Atlantic City and on Sept. 4, under the sponsorship of the Atlantic City Exchange Club, appeared wearing a flowing white floor-length dress in the “float parade” on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Her elaborate float was festooned with American flags, with a large Exchange Club symbol and “Miss Virginia” appearing on a banner on the front.
The pageant was won by Miss California, Rosemary LaPlanche. Jacquelyn finished in a respectable 15th place, between Miss Oklahoma and Miss Wisconsin.
After the pageant Jacquelyn returned to Waynesboro and enrolled in her senior year. “Miss Virginia turns from beauty to books” stated a Page 2 headline in the Staunton News Leader.
But the honors were far from over, and the attention given to Jacquelyn in the Miss America Pageant was overshadowed by the audacious spectacles of the Turkey Festival. On Oct. 8 she arrived escorted by state troopers to a reception in her honor at Madison College (now James Madison University).
The festival kicked off with a bizarre annual activity called a “turkey throw.” Crowds gathered around the six-story Alfred Neys building, then, under a perfect October sky, eight large flapping and squawking turkeys were flung off the roof. “Thousands of visitors, who jammed the streets … sought to grab a potential dinner from the air,” reported the News Leader.
The next morning Jacquelyn reviewed a patriotic children’s parade composed of over 1,000 local children and high school bands through the streets of Harrisonburg. That afternoon she was officially crowned “Queen Rockingham III” by West Virginia Representative Jennings Randolph at an extravagant coronation at the Madison College campus. A fireman’s parade and a coronation ball at Augusta Military Academy ended the first day’s whirlwind of activities.
The pageantry of the Miss America Pageant and the Rockingham Turkey Festival capped an eventful two months for Jacquelyn McWin, and in mid-October she returned to a quiet life of a high school senior.
In 1944 she married Gilbert Peglow and became a senior aide for United Way. In 1978 she retired in Deltona, Florida, and worked as a volunteer for the American Cancer Society Thrift Shop. She died at age 77 on May 2, 2001.
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