Beatrice "BeBe" Shopp—Miss America 1948—died on on Oct. 4. She was 95. Shopp was the first Miss Mississippi to win the title (her talent was playing the vibraphone). According to a Star Tribune article of 2017, “When she stepped off an airliner in London on her widely covered European tour in 1949, a British reporter asked: ‘What do you plan to do about your surplus fat?’ She shot back: ‘What fat? I think I'm just right.’ She laughed years later, ‘Being Miss America means going to so many banquets, which can make it hard.’” Shopp used her $5,000 Miss America scholarship to study the vibraphone at the Manhattan School of Music, and later played professionally. She married and had four children, saying, "I'm very loyal and protective of pageants. You are not competing against the other girls, but you're competing with yourself and pageants make you see who you are."
