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Miss America may be dying, but she's not dead yet

Look past the rhinestones. There's still life in Miss A.

Miss America contestants appauld as they wait to be introduced after arriving in Atlantic City, N.J. on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013. The Miss America pageant is back in the city where it began, six years after spurning the city for Las Vegas. The pageant held a welcoming ceremony Tuesday for the 53 contestants, one from each state plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The contestants filed out of Boardwalk Hall, where the competition will begin next week and culminate days later, and walked across the Boardwalk to a stage. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Miss America contestants appauld as they wait to be introduced after arriving in Atlantic City, N.J. on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013. The Miss America pageant is back in the city where it began, six years after spurning the city for Las Vegas. The pageant held a welcoming ceremony Tuesday for the 53 contestants, one from each state plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The contestants filed out of Boardwalk Hall, where the competition will begin next week and culminate days later, and walked across the Boardwalk to a stage. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)Read moreAP

FOR A LOT of reasons, the Miss America pageant is all but on life support these days.

Millions have tuned out over the years. But I'm like, don't let her go just yet. Look past the rhinestones. There's still life in Miss A.

Feminists will be all over me for this. We're supposed to rage against the sight of all those young women being "exploited." In my line of work, the tendency is to snark about the contest. Whatever. I don't ride that bus. Too much negativity.

Over the years, I've covered a few pageants - even judged the Miss Philadelphia pageant once. And I always walk away feeling inspired by the contestants. I remember once being brought to tears by a contestant's vocal performance. I know I'm in the minority.

"It's almost like we'd rather make Snooki glamorous than someone competing in Miss Amer," said Michelle Strom, host of WE tv's "Obsessed With the Dress." "She gets more attention than Mallory [Miss America 2013] does, and I find that offensive."

"People are looking for the train wrecks," added Strom, who dressed the winning Miss America in 2011. "Women can be very catty and judgmental. Seeing someone being beautiful and talented makes people feel inferior to other people. I can understand that there is a little bit of jealousy there.

"I wish people would just support people who are doing something more than the status quo."

One reason the pageant lacks support is because people don't understand why all those women - this year, 53 will compete in Sunday's night final in Atlantic City - would bother with a tradition that arguably has outlived its sell-by date.

It may sound crass, but the 53 contestants who put up with Miss America's archaic rules and traditions do so hoping to get paid. Or else, they're looking for the same kind of shortcut to fame that actress/singer Vanessa Williams experienced when she was crowned 30 years ago come Tuesday.

"Being in the pageant made her several steps closer to achieving that goal," said Elwood Watson, co-author of There She Is, Miss America: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America's Most Famous Pageant.

"She admits that herself, that it was a jump-start to her career," said Watson, who teaches history and African-American studies at East Tennessee State University.

For more than a few former Miss Americas, the title provides them with quick entry to broadcasting careers. After winning Miss America in 1993, Leanza Cornett slid right into an on-air job at "Entertainment Tonight."

Fox's Gretchen Carlson, who until today anchored "Fox & Friends," is a former Miss America. And until 2012, Debbye Turner (Miss America 1990) was a fill-in anchor on "CBS Morning News." Turner, who now anchors for Arise TV, set out in pageantry to win a scholarship.

"I came from a lower middle-class home," said Turner, who is also a veterinarian. "I had high aspirations for my education, which was very expensive, and it was a way to augment the cost and to finance my educational goals. It did that in spades."

"I don't think that has changed for a lot of women," she said. "The world has changed. Our society has changed over the years. And, yes, there are some women who use it as a platform or a springboard to go into areas of communication or media. But for the 80,000 who enter it on the local level every year, far and away their primary motivation is to win scholarship money to pay for their education."

The purse for this year's Miss Philadelphia pageant was $10,000. That's a hefty sum for what's essentially a night's work. The winner goes on to the Miss Pennsylvania Pageant, where the prize was $7,000.

Yeah, it's nuts that future doctors, lawyers or whatever are expected to put on high heels and strut what their mama gave them in a bathing suit to earn cash for school. But until things change, what are you going to do?