Background
She grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, going to Catholic school and taking ballet and piano lessons.
She grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, going to Catholic school and taking ballet and piano lessons.
DePaul University; Duke University. Florida Coastal School of Law.
Vincent entered DePaul University as a music major, switching to business in junior year and graduating in 1988. Money from beauty pageants helped to pay for school. It was the pageant's 70th anniversary, and former pageant emcee Bert Parks appeared as a guest.
Host Gary Collins had Parks sing "There She Is" as Vincent walked the runway. It was Parks last appearance at the pageant. He died two years later in 1992.
She later worked at WHOI in Peoria, Illinois, and the Ohio News Network in Columbus, Ohio, for the next six-plus years. As of 2008, Vincent was completing her law degree at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, Florida.
After two unsuccessful pageant tries, at Miss North Carolina and Miss Illinois, she won Miss Illinois, allowing her to advance to Miss America. At the Miss America pageant, she performed the Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op posth 66) by Chopin, won the crown, and became Miss America 1991 on 7 September 1990, succeeding Debbye Turner. Thus, Marjorie Vincent was the last Miss America to be serenaded by Bert Parks.
Vincent, who already had two years in law school at Duke University before becoming Miss America, changed her goal from international law to television journalism, becoming a news anchor at WGBC in Meridian, Mississippi in October 1993.
