Jonesboro Occasions: The City Magazine Since 2003
After a brief change in locale, Miss Greater Jonesboro is returning to its rightful home in the City of Jonesboro for 2025. The franchise’s new co-executive directors, Tara Stallings and Lisa Davis, along with their daughters, promise to honor the pageant’s long history while growing the scholarship competition back in its hometown. Miss Greater Jonesboro began in 1937 when Miss Jonesboro, Mary Hinkle Pulliam, was selected as a participant in a bathing beauty review as a part of the annual peach festival held in Forrest City and sponsored by the East Arkansas Young Men’s Club. The Jonesboro Jaycees took over sponsorship in 1952; Cynthia Kenward Melnich was selected as the winner and was also first runner up in the 1952 Miss Arkansas pageant. After a variety of other owners and sponsors, the Miss Jonesboro Scholarship Pageant Association Inc. was formed in 1995 as a nonprofit to produce the Miss Jonesboro Pageant.
