Jane Herlong
pageant winner and author
Jane Jenkins Herlong is an American humorist, author, speaker and the winner of the Miss South Carolina 1979 pageant.
Early life and education
Herlong participated in a local beauty pageant while she was in high school. After taking first place, she continued to participate in beauty pageants, eventually becoming Miss South Carolina at age 23 and then going on to compete in the nationwide Miss America pageant. She attended Columbia College in South Carolina. Herlong began speaking to students at local schools, which inspired her to create her first musical motivational program.
Career
When Herlong's children were young, she began to seek out ways to work closer to home, this was the catalyst for her first book, Bare Feet to High Heels: You Don't Have to Be a Beauty Queen to Be a Beautiful Person. Self-published, the book chronicles her journey from a tomato farm to Miss America with wit, wisdom, and humor. Herlong's career expanded from local to national and international stages, speaking in New Zealand and Germany. Her growing renown earned her an invitation to sing the national anthem, which led to performances at College Bowl games, professional baseball and basketball games, and even Radio City Music Hall.
When her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, Herlong self-published another book.
The public source identifies “Jane Herlong” as pageant winner and author. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jane, Herlong and pageant.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q30303910. VIAF identifies the subject as 307459243. The Library of Congress control number is no2014015044. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jane Herlong” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.