Fifty years ago, more than 8,000 Goshen residents gathered on the courthouse lawn to give one of their own a warm send-off to the Miss America contest in Atlantic City.

The support of the town is what really stands out in Anita (Hursh) Cast’s memory from her days as the reigning Miss Indiana.

The 1957 Goshen High School graduate was crowned Miss Indiana in Michigan City in July 1958.

Cast, now of Fort Wayne, moved to Goshen with her family when she was 3 years old. Her father, Charles Hursh, was an eye doctor who came to Goshen to cover the practice of Dr. Wellington while he was in the service.

“My parents liked Goshen, so we stayed,” Cast said. After living in Westmoor on Sunset Boulevard, the family moved to South Eighth Street.

Cast competed in the Miss Goshen pageant, sponsored by the Goshen Lions Club, after her senior year of high school. She was named second runner-up at the Miss Indiana pageant in Michigan City.

The next year, her first summer home from DePauw University, Lions Club members approached her father, asking if they could sponsor Anita at Miss Indiana again as Miss Goshen.

“I could not say no to my dad,” Cast said with a laugh.

There was no local Miss Goshen pageant that year, Cast remembers, but the Lions Club wanted her to represent Goshen at state.

And she represented Goshen well — she won the crown and title. And the town showed its appreciation.

“It was incredible, the support from Goshen,” Cast said.

The then Miss Hursh had a reception thrown in her honor on the courthouse lawn that drew more than 8,000 people, and the town organized a parade in her honor.

The Goshen News sponsored her float in the Miss America Parade in Atlantic City.

“The Goshen News was wonderful,” Cast said, adding that publisher Bud Hascall was very supportive of her reign as Miss Indiana. A favorite 1958 photo features Cast and a young Jane (Hascall) Gemmer, Bud’s daughter.

Goshen residents even made sure Cast would have some musical support on her journey east.

“They raised the money to send the (Goshen High School) band to Atlantic City with me,” Cast said. The Goshen history book reports that in two weeks the residents of Goshen raised $6,435.

One of her favorite memories is of the band serenading her as she stood on her hotel balcony in Atlantic City.

The townspeople were so enthusiastically behind their Miss Indiana “I won a special award for hometown support” at the national event, Cast said.

While Cast, who played the piano for her talent, didn’t win the title or place in the top four, she did win a preliminary swimsuit competition. She was also predicted to win by a poll taken of members of the press.

The winner of the 1958 title was Miss Alabama Mary Ann Mobley.

Cast said that her mom, Hulda, who was in Atlantic City that week, predicted Mobley would win.

While the other girls were hanging out together and having a great time, Mobley was “either sleeping or practicing,” Cast said.

Unlike today’s scholarship pageants when family members are discouraged from seeing the girls during competition week, Casts’ mom was a chaperone for the pageant and her dad was also on the scene.

“My dad was an amateur photographer and Bud Hascall got him a press pass,” Cast said. She laughs when she remembers one time she forgot herself and said ‘hi’ to her dad in the press corps.

“I got reprimanded for talking to the press,” Cast said. “I couldn’t tell them he was my dad!”

Her sister and brother also made the trip to Atlantic City (her sister was in the band.)

Honored

Cast was recently honored for the 50th anniversary of her win at the Miss Indiana Scholarship Program in Terre Haute, where she served as a judge.

“Those girls were terrific,” she said of the 2008 contestants. “They are so smart and talented. They volunteer. They are just wonderful.”

She noted that the scholarship program today is definitely more intricate and organized.

“It really is showbiz,” she said.

But though the program has glitzed up a bit, Cast said she appreciates the Miss America program for remaining about scholarships.

Cast said the scholarship money from the state, local and national programs was very helpful while she was in school. She graduated from Depauw University in 1961 with a double major in psychology and sociology and a minor in music. Music remains a great love of Cast’s, as she still enjoys playing the piano and is involved with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra.

She met her husband, Bill, on a blind date while she was at DePauw, when a group of girls from her school traveled to Indianapolis to attend a medical fraternity dinner/dance. She was a junior and he was a sophomore medical student at Indiana University. They married in 1961.

The couple lived in Indianapolis while Bill completed his last year of medical school, then a year of internship and four years of residency. They moved to Columbia, S.C., where Bill spent two years in the Army. They moved to Fort Wayne in 1969, where they still reside.

The couple has three children, Jennifer of Seattle, Carter of Omaha, and Meghan of San Francisco, and three grandchildren.

Bill is an ear, nose and throat specialist in Fort Wayne. He still practices part time, but has also started up a medical software company called No More Clipboards.