Dudley takes Hartsville path to the Miss America Pageant
By Bobby Bryant, Editor
editor@newsandpress.net
Here are some of the things Jill Dudley, formerly Miss Hartsville and now Miss South Carolina, wants you to know about her:
She’s a certified paralegal who wants to go to law school.
She’s the first in her family to graduate from college (Coastal Carolina University, cum laude, with a degree in English).
She holds multiple records in high-school track and cross-country.
She likes to imitate cartoon characters and celebrities.
“Zoinks! We gotta get outta here!” Dudley demonstrates in a phone interview, channeling Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo TV cartoons, one of her favorites. She can also do Britney Spears, although that’s harder – “Her voice is very concentrated in her throat.” And sometimes Cher.
Growing up in Socastee in Horry County, Dudley’s father got her interested in doing impersonations, and she’s kept working at it. There’s also a practical reason: “I think the best way to break the ice with someone is to make them laugh.”
On June 25 in Columbia, Dudley, 23, broke the ice with judges at the 2022 Miss South Carolina Pageant with impressive turns in the talent and interview competitions, and ended the night as the new Miss South Carolina. She competed as Miss Hartsville, a title she had won at the beginning of the year.
It was her first time competing in the Miss Hartsville contest at Center Theater, though she earlier had won two other local pageants. Dudley said she tried the Hartsville pageant because its director, Tiletha Lane, reached out to her.
Dudley said she had heard of how Lane mentored other young women in the Hartsville pageant, and she wanted to experience that. “I thought Hartsville would be a great place for me. I decided to take a chance.”
She had never lived or worked in Hartsville, but pageant rules don’t require contestants to be residents of the towns they represent. Dudley has spent a lot of time in Hartsville and she likes the town. “It’s a small, hometown community,” she said. “Everyone knows everyone. Everybody there is very genuine.”
“Even though it is a smaller town, there are a lot of amazing people there,” said Dudley, who is currently living in Columbia.
“Hartsville reminds me a little of Conway,” where she went to college at Coastal Carolina, Dudley said. In particular, Dudley liked Center Theater, where she had spent a great deal of time rehearsing. “A lot of my time really revolved around that place.”
“Center Theater really sticks out to me,” she said. “It’s beautiful. I just love the look of it.”
As the new Miss South Carolina, Dudley will receive about $65,000 in scholarship money, which will be useful for repaying student loans and planning the next stage of her career. That might be law school at the University of South Carolina.
“I’m thinking the law field,” she said.
The next year or so will be dominated by her responsibilities as Miss South Carolina, which will including competing in the Miss America pageant later this year. “I’m very honored,” she said. “I’m very excited to start getting to work.”
“It’s not every day you get such a large platform to talk about things that are important to you,” she said.
One major thing she wants to focus on is diabetes education for South Carolina. Her younger brother Luke has Type 1 diabetes and depends on insulin to control his blood sugars. She wants residents to understand how Type 2 diabetes can be avoided with diet and exercise, and she wants people to recognize the need for affordable insulin.
Dudley also wants women to see the opportunities provided by scholarship programs like Miss South Carolina and the local pageants that flow into it. “There’s a lot of opportunities for growth in this organization,” she said. “It’s truly changed my life.”
