[Photographs of an Annual Texas Beauty Pageant]

Corpus Christi, Texas: Blackwell Photography, 1968. Very good. 36 8" x 10" B&W photographs, including 9 duplicates. Very good or better: a few slightly wavy with mild corner wear.

This is a great group of photos revealing the 1968 "New Year's Day Swim and Beauty Pageant," an event held in Corpus Christi, Texas, for over 20 years.

Articles in local papers told us all about the day: "Approximately 400 persons braved goosebump weather yesterday morning to help usher in 1968 . . . Held this year in front of the Million Dollar Inn on Padre Island, the festivities began about 10 a.m. when nine shivering bathing beauties paraded before judges at the side of the inn's swimming pool." A local radio star served as MC, and the contest was judged by native notables such as "Nueces County Commissioner Robert Barnes, State Rep. Charles Scoggins, mayor pro tem Ronnie Sizemore and Mrs. Laura S. Stevenson, the winner of the 1962 contest." The "swim" ("a brief dash in and out of the 53-degree water") began as a dare among Chamber of Commerce staff in 1955, and when the Jaycees took it over they added the beauty pageant. It was seen as a promotion for the "mild" winter in South Texas, but a string of frigid New Year's Days led to its demise; in 1978 one local paper wrote that "a group of thoroughly chilled young ladies shivering alongside a gray and even chillier Gulf" was nothing short of a "civic embarrassment."

These joyful photos show the mostly bare-skinned beauties "helping" change the marquis at the Million Dollar Inn, cavorting on the beach with a costumed Moses and his staff, posed with swimmers, poolside, in the surf and at the awards ceremony (where they were finally allowed coats). The winner, Ginger Patterson, "a 19-year old blonde who may be the most photographed beauty in South Texas," was "one of the sunshine girls at the Corpus Christi Area Tourist Bureau" who also "handles the information desk." She won a watch, a three-foot trophy, a "tour of HemisFair" and a weekend stay at the inn.

We found ads for Blackwell Photography, "Pictures That Tell The Story," in Corpus Christi newspapers until 1982. Jack Blackwell, owner and editor of the Corpus Christi Press and community leader, operated the business for over 20 years before turning it over to his son in 1972.

A fantastic collection showing a popular winter event in South Texas.