My late grandmother, Miriam Creech Stallings, was selected "Miss Goldsboro, 1932" and is the very first Miss Goldsboro that can be found on record. In 2018, I, along with my family, established the "Miriam Creech Stallings Scholarship Fund" which is a scholarship that is awarded to a contestant every November during the Miss Goldsboro Pageant. Isabella Noelle Gaines Garmon, Miss Goldsboro, 2019, was the first recipient of the scholarship. Below is a post our daughter, Karen Stallings Terrell, made while she was Miss Spivey's Corner, 2017, in honor and in memory of her great grandmother just prior to the Miss North Carolina Pageant in June 2017...
"THROWBACK to 85 years ago when my great grandmother, Miriam Creech Stallings, became the first Miss Goldsboro. She competed for the title of Miss North Carolina five years before it became an organization. The pageant, at the time, was a beauty contest and what a true beauty she was. *To all my pageant sisters, this was her "crown" shot. *
"My biggest motivation to compete came from her legacy. Everything about her screamed Miss America. She lived as an example to all by using each point of the crown {Service, Scholarship, Style, and Success}. I remember standing beside her bed at 4 years old, with my sister, and her looking up to us saying "I will never be able to watch you grow up, but I am so proud of you already." What I failed to realize when I began competing was how much I would learn about myself. Of course, I started because I had a special connection to the organization, but now it means so much more. I am working toward my own personal goals, impacting the lives of others by being a voice and light for everyone, and each day I am growing into the woman that I have always wanted to become. I hope to always make Nana proud, and to shine the light that she instilled in me on the Miss North Carolina stage." #racetothecrown
Karen Stallings
Miss Spivey's Corner, 2017
Our daughter Karen finished in the top 15 at The Miss North Carolina Pageant as Miss Spivey's Corner in 2017 and as Miss Greensboro 2018. No doubt as she had hoped to, she made “Nana,” as her grandchildren called her, proud both times on the Miss NC stage!
My daughter Karen, Miss Greensboro 2018 (right) and I presenting the very first MCS Scholarship to Isabella Noelle Gaines, Miss Goldsboro 2019.
2022 Winner of the Miriam Creech Stallings Scholarship Fund, Tara Parker, also crowned Miss Goldsboro 2022.
Miriam Stella Creech Stallings, June 12, 1912-May 18, 1997 (Married Albert Stallings in October 1936.)
As of November 2022, close to $1,000.00 in scholarship money has been awarded since its inception in 2019. For more information on the Miriam Creech Stallings Scholarship Fund, and how to contribute and be a part, please email me at barrystallingsmusic@gmail.com or contact the Miss Goldsboro Scholarship Pageant by going to their Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063531699745&mibextid=LQQJ4d