Judith Ford

Judi Nash [née Judith Anne Ford] is a retired teacher who was Miss America 1969. Ford qualified to compete in the Miss America pageant by winning first the title of Miss Boone County and then the Miss Illinois pageant. She was crowned in a white, gold embroidered organza dress custom made by Alyce Hamm of Alyce Designs. Ford was a world-class trampolinist at the time of the pageant, and used her skills on the trampoline for her performance in the talent portion of the competition—the only Miss America contestant ever to compete using the trampoline.^[1]

Ford had won the Miss Illinois Teenager Pageant^{[citation needed]} while she attended Belvidere High School, in Belvidere, Illinois. After graduating from high school, she spent her freshman year of college at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, (then called the University of Southwestern Louisiana), to train under the expertise of trampoline coach Jeff Hennessy. After her freshmen year she took time off from her studies to compete in the Miss America pageant and its preliminaries. Following her year off, she transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received her bachelor's degree in physical education. She later in life earned a master's degree in physical education from Western Illinois University.

She served on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports for eight years, appointed by Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. She was an elementary physical education teacher and is now retired, but still coaches golf and basketball. She is married to James Nash, an attorney in Geneseo, Illinois.

External links

• Miss America Pageant
• Miss Illinois Pageant

References