OBITUARY: Ex-beauty queen didn't rely on looks for joy

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COURTESY PHOTO

Claire J.T. Kern was told when she was younger she couldn't have children, but she had six. She was also Miss North Dakota in the 1950 Miss American Pageant. In a Norwegian costume and dialect, she won the talent competition with her humorous reading about a girl trying to get a man.

By MARK ZALOUDEK
mark.zaloudek@heraldtribune.com

SARASOTA -- At the age of 11, when Claire Joan T. Kern asked her grandmother if she was beautiful, her grandmother replied: "No, you're a tomboy, but if you sit on your hands and hide your legs, you've got a pretty good personality."

Several years later, Kern was crowned Miss North Dakota and competed in the Miss America Pageant, winning the talent competition.

Kern died Sept. 7, 2006, in Sarasota at the age of 75 after suffering a stroke. She often took risks and beat the odds by trusting her instincts, said daughter Laura Kern of Sarasota.

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