Drama, Then Queen: Accidentally Left at Gas Station, She Won Little Miss Avalon that Same Day 50 Years Ago
Little Miss Avalon 1970 Liz Dougherty is crowned by the outgoing Little Miss Avalon, Mary Beth Marshall.
Liz Dougherty remembers the afternoon of Aug. 1, 1970, like it was yesterday.
After all, what 10-year-old wouldn’t recall being accidentally left at a gas station by her family, and then a short while later being crowned Queen of the Little Miss Avalon pageant?
But that’s exactly what happened 50 years ago, on a day that she’ll never forget.
Liz had been excited about competing in the Little Miss Avalon pageant, which was for 6-to-12-year-olds, and the sister competition to the Miss Avalon pageant for teenagers.
“It was something I really wanted to do,” she says.
Before the pageant, which was being held at the Avalon Community Hall, her parents Dick and Rita took the family to a company picnic in Medford Lakes. On the way back to their summer house on 20th Street in Avalon, they stopped at a gas station, and after using the restroom, Liz discovered they had left without her.
“When I came outside, horror struck me because my family had driven off, leaving me standing alone by the gas pump,” she says. “I was really scared and I waited for what seemed like an eternity.”
Finally, she saw her father’s Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser wagon coming back for her.
“We rushed to Avalon and I quickly jumped into my bathing suit and we headed to Community Hall,” she said.
It was the last year that the girls wore bathing suits in the pageant, Liz notes.
“The suit I wore was the one I wore to the beach every day,” she says. “It was a one-piece with the sides cut out, the style of the day.”
Twenty-five girls were vying for the Little Miss Avalon crown of 1970. Much like a contest for older girls, they walked the runway.
“We smiled at everybody as we went down the runway, and then took our places on stage,” she says. “The emcee asked each of us a question – it was very basic.
“They announced the runners-up first, and then they announced my name as the winner.”
The 1969 Queen, Mary Beth Marshall, presented Liz with her crown, and she also received flowers, a trophy, and a pound of Copper Kettle Fudge.
Her parents were in the audience, and quite understandably were extremely excited and proud of their daughter.
“When we came home, my father was beeping the car horn and holding the trophy out the window,” Liz says. “And that was it for the pageants I competed in – it was a one-and-done.”
As the Queen, Liz was invited to participate in the Avalon Baby Parade. But the morning of the parade the float broke, so they had a backup plan for her.
“I ended up riding in the back of a convertible car,” she says.
Beyond her crowning moment as Little Miss Avalon of 1970, Liz has many fond memories of her childhood summers on Seven Mile Beach.
“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, there was a lot of undeveloped land in Avalon, so the mosquito population was controlled by the infamous sprayer man, who drove a red pickup that sprayed white smoke,” she says. “As kids, we would yell, ‘The sprayer man is coming,’ and we would all run behind him, chasing the white fog. God only knows what was in that!”
Other memories include watching the Avalon Players in both July and August, with after-parties held at The Whitebrier.
“We hit the boards on our bikes to go play at Community Hall,” Liz says. “My brothers played for the Avalon Gems baseball team and we went to games in Court House, Whitesboro, Marmora, and Woodbine, with players riding in the back of Mr. Salvesen’s pickup.
“The Avalon movie theater played the same movies year after year including ‘Yours, Mine and Ours,’ ‘The Russians Are Coming,’ and ‘Jaws,’ that cost 50 cents for the matinee, and 75 cents for the evening show.
“We loved pinball and Skee-Ball at Buckley’s on the boardwalk, and we could jump off the 21st and 25th Street bridges at high tide.
“The borough had fantastic Fourth of July races, with swimming in the morning at the Windrift pool and afternoon races on the beach. They actually awarded silver dollars to the winners.”
During the offseason, the Doughertys lived in Wayne, Pa., and when Liz was going into the ninth grade, her father decided he wanted to live at the shore year-round. He had paid $16,000 for their summer home at 109 20th St., and was able to put in an offer for a house at 10 East 19th St. through an auction. His offer was accepted, but he had forgotten his checkbook.
Luckily, Frank Marshall, an attorney and the father of Mary Beth, the 1969 Little Miss Avalon Queen, wrote the check for him, and beginning in 1974 the family lived in Avalon for about two years.
“But I didn’t really like living there in the winter – there were only a few stores open,” says Liz, who attended Wildwood Catholic High School.
After graduating high school, she earned a basketball scholarship from Catholic University, and later attended Immaculata University, where she earned a degree and began working as a dietician in long-term care, which she still does today.
She married her husband Joseph Campbell in 2000, and they have a daughter, Kennedy. After living in Monmouth County for many years, Liz and her family now live in Cape May.
