Vonda Kay Van Dyke

Who is Vonda Kay Van Dyke?

Vonda Kay Van Dyke was crowned the 1965 Miss America on September 13, 1964. Earlier in the year, she had taken a break as a 21-year-old junior at Arizona State University to become Miss Arizona. She is unique among pageant winners in that she was and still is the only Miss America who was also Miss Congeniality.

Vonda Kay Van Dyke was born in Muskegon, Michigan. Her father, Dr. A.B. Van Dyke, was an osteopath. The family moved to Phoenix, the seat of Maricopa County, Arizona, where Vonda attended the Phoenix Christian Junior/Senior High School. In her senior year she entered a local America's Junior Miss pageant, where she surprised the judges and her fellow competitors by performing ventriloquism as her talent, which she later honed at the Phoenix amusement park, Legend City. She was named Arizona's Junior Miss for 1961, and traveled with "Kurley-Q" to Mobile, Alabama, for the national finals, where she placed in the top ten. Her next major pageant was the 1962 Miss Phoenix competition. She did not win there, but remained persistent in her pursuit of a trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and her dedication bore fruit when she won the Miss Tempe crown in 1964, then Miss Maricopa County, then Miss Arizona, and finally Miss America, where she was the first contestant to use ventriloquism in the talent competition.