Q: Here’s my Ask Us question: What the hell?
A: OK, this was from a Free Press staffer who had been sorting through messages emailed to the newspaper and came across this one … .
“Hi there,
I am looking for a specific issue of the paper from 1984. My class, the Mankato East High School Class of 1984, was known as the class that threw food at Miss America when she came for a visit. I’d love to find the specific issue of the paper that discussed this. It made the New York Times and the Paul Harvey Radio show. I’m compiling it all for our class reunion. I’d love to know if its possible to find the archives from early 1984.”
Ask Us Guy dug around a bit and found that the unfortunate event actually occurred in the fall of 1981. So the culprits from the Class of ‘84 were still-immature sophomores when Miss America visited, not the responsible young adults they undoubtedly had become by their graduation year.
Here’s how the once formidable news service United Press International described the incident to audiences across the globe on Oct. 8, 1981 … .
Miss America forgives tater tot attacker
MANKATO, Minn. — Miss America has forgiven a student who tossed food at her in a high school lunchroom and soiled her new $400 suede pants. He even got a song dedicated to him at Wednesday’s Miss Mankato pageant.
The student, after some hard questioning from the Mankato East High School principal, admitted throwing tater tots at the newly crowned beauty queen, Elizabeth Ward of Arkansas.
Another student who tossed a greasy apricot cobbler at Miss Ward has not been identified.
The food flew as principal John Sjostrom was giving Miss America a tour of the high school Tuesday. There was a gasp, and Miss America’s new suede trousers, worn for the first time, were spattered. But she kept smiling, and other students were quick to apologize.
That night the president of the student government and another senior brought a bouquet of flowers to Miss America as she was having dinner and apologized for the student body.
Some students were in tears with embarrassment.
”How can I be upset when the other kids are so good to me?” she said.
Sjostrom apologized for the school. And before the Wednesday night pageant, Miss America received a letter of apology from the boy who admitted throwing the potatoes.
In the pageant Miss America dedicated a song to a girl who was her host, and also to the boy who apologized.
”Yes, Jim,” she said. “You are forgiven.”
”All I can say is that this is one of the most embarrassing things that has ever happened under my administration. The faculty, students and staff feel terrible about it,” Sjostrom said.
The story, which likely was rewritten from coverage by The Free Press, did not provide the last name of the villainous “Jim.” But maybe someone at the 40th class reunion can persuade “Jim,” if he’s there instead of some federal prison, to step forward and explain his behavior.
As for Elizabeth Ward, the tater tot/apple cobbler affair was far from the last time she made national and international news.
Using the stage name Elizabeth Gracen, she became an actress and had roles in films starring Charlie Sheen, Steven Seagal and Robert Urich and later had a recurring TV role in “Highlander: The Series.”
And the former Miss Arkansas admitted in 1998 to having a one-night stand with another famous Arkansan in 1983 — then-Gov. Bill Clinton. Both he and she were married at the time, and during an interview with NBC-TV 15 years later, Gracen said her behavior was “wrong” and “inappropriate” and issued a public apology to Hilary Clinton: “That’s not the way a woman should treat a woman.”
Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, 418 S. Second St., Mankato, MN 56001. Call Mark Fischenich at 344-6321 or email your question to mfischenich@mankatofreepress.com; put Ask Us in the subject line.