Biography
Evelyn Ay Sempier was born the daughter of German immigrants in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. She had a short but successful career in smaller beauty contests. As Miss Ephrata Fair and Tobacco Queen of Lancaster County in 1950, she wore a crown that looked like tobacco leaves. After graduating from Ephrata High School in 1951, she won the titles of Miss Pennsylvania AMVET and the Miss National AMVET in 1952, as well as the Miss Pennsylvania title in 1953. Sempier was selected Miss America at the last year before the pageant was televised.
In a 1993 interview, "Evvy" said she was surprised at her victories. "That was the ultimate role model, like being Doris Day in real life." She embarked on her career as a favor to a friend who was trying to promote a pageant for the Junior Chamber International (JayCees). She traveled 270,000 miles (434,523 km) during her yearlong reign, and remained active with the pageant for many years, judging many local pageants and the national Miss America contest in 1981.
Shortly after passing on the Miss America crown, she married Carl G. Sempier, a Navy veteran and corporate executive on 13 November 1954, and had two children. Mr. Semper died in 2007.
Sempier officially introduced the Nash Metropolitan at the 1954 Chicago Auto Show. She was a spokesperson for Nash Motors in promoting the first American car that was marketed specifically to women. She described her marketing for Nash as the finest among her 40-years of commercial relationships, and the company was "most generous in sponsoring Miss America in many parts of America."
Over the course of the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s, she made frequent appearances as a motivational speaker to women's and business groups.
Sempier died on October 18, 2008 of colorectal cancer. She remains the only Miss Pennsylvania to win the national pageant.
"She was a class act through and through ... A wonderful lady..."
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