This year’s Miss Los Angeles County & Miss Culver City Pageant will be held at the Kiyoto Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena on February 24, and Culver City is gearing up for the big event.
The biggest part of the pageant, which represents those living within the Culver City Real Estate area, is its scholarship program. The Miss California Scholarship Organization (MCSO) manages this program. In the past the MCSO has provided monetary scholarship awards ranging from $600 up to $1,500.
Scholarships won by pageant contestants can be applied to trade schools, colleges, or universities. Martin Feinberg, Culver City Realtor, appreciates how the scholarships give recipients options in achieving their personal goals.
Besides the scholarship money received by pageant winners, financial assistance is also provided to many contestants. The Miss Los Angeles County & Miss Culver City Pageant gives away thousands of dollars in scholarship assistance to pageant participants annually.
Glenn Mitchell, the Miss Los Angeles County & Miss Culver City Pageant Program coordinator, explained that this pageant is often a contestant’s first step toward becoming Miss America.
Mitchell stated, “A lot of girls come from other pageants because they may be first runner-up in one pageant and then come to our pageant and then become a winner and then go on to compete for the Miss California crown and then those winners go on to compete for Miss America.”
Mitchell also acknowledged that this would be the first year that the pageant will not be held at the Morgan-Wixson Theater in Santa Monica.
“[Morgan-Wixson theater in Santa Monica] is a children’s theater and the board of directors decided that they had too many children’s programs online and that they could no longer allow us to use the theater because [the pageant] is an adult program,” Mitchell said.
The Miss California Scholarship Organization was established in 1945. Martin Feinberg, Realtor, notes that without it the Miss Los Angeles & Miss Culver City Pageant Scholarship Program would likely not exist.
For more information on the Miss Los Angeles County & Miss Culver City Pageant or on the scholarship program, please visit www.misscalifornia.org.