Our One & Only
the other members of Troop 1 being lauded in the local newspaper for their efforts on behalf of the elderly or needy in the community.
Starting in junior high, Carlene served on“ patrol,” helping younger children cross the street on the way to and from school. In 1945, the tomatoes she grew in their backyard finished third at the Vermont State Fair in Rutland.( She won the Elks Club tomato growing competition the following year). At Rutland High School, Carlene proved just as busy. In addition to sports, she participated in theatre, dance, and chorus. During her senior year, she made the All-State Music Festival as part of the choir. Johnson graduated with honors from Rutland High School in 1951 and matriculated at nearby Middlebury College.
Johnson majored in drama and joined the Kappa Sigma sorority but only spent one year at the esteemed liberal arts college. For a time, she seemed destined for the family business, attending classes at the Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene at Tufts University, just outside of Boston. She left dental hygienist school too, pursuing instead a modeling career with a Boston-based agency. It was during this restless time in her life that Johnson started entering beauty pageants.
In 1951, Carlene was named Queen of Rutland’ s Annual Hospital Charity Cotillion, the most significant ball on the city’ s social calendar. In subsequent years, Johnson served as a coach for other young women who participated in Cotillion.
Back and forth between Rutland and Boston, Carlene started her own clothing design and costume jewelry business, which she sold out of her
16 VERMONT MAGAZINE home and to a handful of stores in New England.
Carlene wore one of her own designs on May 23, 1953, when she competed in the eighth annual Miss Vermont pageant, held at Burlington’ s Memorial Auditorium.
She wore a pale blue evening gown, which according to the Vermont Sunday News’ Larry Van Benthuysen,“ revealed to wonderful advantage her attractive shoulders and back which showed a smooth suntan.”
She performed a modern dance routine in the talent competition and discussed her small business during questioning with the judges.
“ It could be said that she’ s the Doris Day type, a refreshingly wholesome blonde blue-eyed beauty with a scintillating smile. Her hair is natural curly blonde, incidentally,” wrote Vermont Sunday News’ Gil Wood of her presentation in the Miss Vermont pageant. Wood described her as standing“ 5’ 4 but 5’ 8 in heels.”
Johnson won the competition, earning her a spot in the Miss America pageant that September in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In the leadup to the Miss America pageant, Johnson was one of several competitors featured on NBC’ s Today Show. The segment on Johnson included footage of her performing a dance routine, throwing a baseball outside of her Rutland home, greeting Rutland Mayor Dan Healey in front of City Hall, and visiting the Champlain Valley Fair.
Johnson finished 13th in the Miss America Pageant. Her time as a pageant contestant was not over though. Johnson’ s status as Miss Vermont earned her a bid to the Miss USA pageant, which had just emerged as a competing beauty contest in 1952. Catalina Swimwear, a longtime Miss America sponsor, created the Miss USA pageant and global Miss Universe pageant after Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1950, refused to pose for pictures in the company’ s swimwear. Catalina hosted the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants each July in Long Beach, California, near the company’ s headquarters.
While the Miss Vermont pageant organization paid for Johnson to attend Miss America, she found a local beneficiary in the Rutland Chamber of Commerce to pay for her expenses to attend Miss USA in July 1955. Johnson flew out to Southern California the day before the pageant. She barely slept the night before the competition, speaking with her parents by phone after 2 AM Pacific time to calm her jitters.
Her breakfast before the pageant was grapefruit juice, a donut, and a glass of milk.
During the competition, she wore a navy-blue strapless gown of her own design which featured pearls and rhinestones with a black velvet bodice. For the swimwear competition, she wore a one-piece Catalina bathing suit.
When answering the judges’ questions, she described herself as the“ president, vice president, and waterboy” of her jewelry business. Orders poured in for her designs in the aftermath of the competition.
A judge asked her if she was a“ traditional Vermont Republican,” noting that the state had not gone for a Democrat since Franklin Pierce. Johnson replied“ is there any other kind?”
James Bacon of the Associated