Pageant was fun for first Miss Pea Ridge

PEA RIDGE — The first Miss Pea Ridge - Nedra McGinnis Bolain - recalled the first pageant when the residents of Pea Ridge gathered to celebrate the centennial Aug. 4-5, 1950.

“It was the first year, and they just asked me to run. There were several others to run, too,” Bolain, 82, said. “It was new to all of us. It was fun. It’s still fun.

“It tickles me when people ask:were Miss Pea Ridge?’”

McGinnis married Jim Bolain Sept. 9, 1950, so did not compete in any other pageants.

“I couldn’t be married and runfor it,” she said. She graduated from Pea Ridge High School in 1946.

“Our stage was a flat bed truck,” Bolain remembered.

Several years later, she returned to ride on the back of Darrell Thompson’s convertible in the parade. “I got a heat stroke. It was so hot.”

“I was proud to have gotten it,” she said.

Nedra was the daughter of Solon and Phebe McGinnis. She and her husband, Jim, have two children, seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

Contestants in 1950 were Joan Webb, Leota Dean, Delores Wilkerson, Nedra McGinnis, Joan Bequin and Francine Gastineau.