Diary of a College Beauty: UF’s first homecoming queen shares her memories of Palm Beach County

It’s good to be queen.

Even if that shining moment happened 56 years ago.

Carolyn Stroupe was a junior in 1953 when she became the University of Florida’s first homecoming queen.

The Palm Beach High graduate soon earned another “first” : She and fellow model Beverly Bentley became the first models on a new TV game show, The Price is Right. Their signature moves — gracefully and elegantly running their hands over the merchandise — have inspired every show hostess ever since.

Carolyn made $12,000-a-year for those poetic moves, and she earned it, since this was live TV.

“The stagehands would, for example, roll out a stove on a dolly and they’d walk away,” she remembered. “You’d go to show it and sometimes the merchandise would fall down cockeyed and you’d still have to go on showing it as if nothing happened. The audience loved that.”

In the 50s Stroupe was the college ideal. She was featured on Parade magazine (above) , and in 1955 Look magazine ran a feature on her titles ‘Diary of a College Beauty.’

Carolyn Stroupe Stambaugh’s memories are part of the new book Palm Beach County at 100: Our History, Our Home.

After years of modeling in New York, Carolyn came home to West Palm Beach, married eye doctor Reginald Stambaugh and raised a family.

“Today our four children are fifth-generation Palm Beach County natives and some of our grandchildren are of the sixth generation,” Stambaugh says. “They, too, are blessed to live in the tropical paradise which Reggie and I have loved.”

‘‘After learning how to model in fashion shows, I was introduced to “Miss Martha” and her daughter,“Miss Lynn”, of the prestigious Martha’s shop on Worth Avenue. They were the first of several Worth Avenue stores that hired me to show their clothes at the luncheons on Wednesdays at the Everglades Club. Miss Anderson, the dean of women at Palm Beach High, and Mrs. Love, my journalism teacher, allowed me to miss class in order to model. I also modeled in several Palm Beach hotels, including the Whitehall Hotel, a hotel that had been built onto the Flagler Museum. That work helped me pay for college.”

‘I got a 2-cent postcard sent to me from California (above). The only address was a pasted photo of me and the words “West Palm Beach.” To show you what a small town West Palm was at that time — I received the card, no problem.’

‘The first air-conditioned building I remember was Burdines department store on Clematis Street. I was in high school then, and I remember walking in the front door and just standing there to cool off. Burdines was a novelty in more than one way: It also had the first escalator in town!’

Tags: celebrities, schools

Big Names Drew Impressive Crowds

In honor of Black History Month, we’re revisiting local people or places that have made historical contributions.

The Sunset, built in 1925 at Eighth and Henrietta streets in West Palm Beach, drew the greatest of the musical greats — Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles.

It also drew as many as 1,000 people a night, both black and white.

On Saturdays, neon lights atop the two-story, 14,000-square-foot building shone in the crisp air of a South Florida winter’s night.

On the street, men in tuxedos and women in shining white full-length gowns stepped from idling black limousines.

They mingled with day workers who’d walked from home or parked late-model sedans blocks away.
Many of the maids and chauffeurs who worked in Palm Beach would come. At times, they’d mention to their employers that some big performer was playing on the mainland, and the limos would soon be crossing the bridge.

The Sunset’s second-floor auditorium possibly was the largest dance hall of any black club in Florida.
Huge flowers, rising almost to the balcony, adorned tables. Other tables lined the balcony and looked down onto the dance floor.

“They filled the place. It was elbow to elbow,” Thelma Starks, then 89, said in 2006. Her husband, Dennis Starks, owned the place in its heyday.

Patrons dressed appropriately. Decent clothes for downstairs, a jacket for upstairs. Swearing was not tolerated.

White or black, rich or otherwise, if someone acted up, Starks refunded his money and said he was welcome when he was worthy.

Next week: Times change

The main dance floor at The Sunset was often elbow-to-elbow as up to 1,000 people, both white and black, came to the club where musical greats like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles played. Patrons needed to be dressed well and be on their best behavior to be welcome at the West Palm Beach club. Swearing or other bad conduct would bring a refund and an ejection from Dennis Starks, who owned The Sunset during its heyday. (Photo courtesy of Thelma Starks)

Tags: African Americans, Black history month, black icons, celebrities, Sunset Lounge

Nightclub Was Hangout For Celebs

Readers: I’m diverting from my usual “Q&A” format for a guest column from Vincent J. O’Hara III of Delray Beach:
“Sixty-one years ago this Independence Day weekend (in 1944), O’Hara’s, the legendary Palm Beach fun spot, was opened to the public.
“My grandfather, Vincent J. O’Hara Sr., and my father, Vincent J. O’Hara Jr., first began welcoming guests to their World War II-era nightclub, to a small cozy building at 132 N. County Road, which in later years was expanded, remodeled and updated to include four different bars, two dance floors and two bandstands.
“The famous and the not-so-famous, but just as welcome, would fill this storied fun place to the rafters during the height of its popularity, 1958-1980.
“The list of luminaries would include the duke and duchess of Windsor, Jack Benny, Merv Griffin and Jackie Gleason after his frequent late-night pool playing forays in the area, off-duty Secret Service men, press secretary Pierre Salinger, and house staff from Rose Kennedy’s North Ocean Boulevard estate.
“The year 1983 ushered in the death of our venerated founder, my grandfather, Vincent Sr., at age 83. That same year, a fire destroyed all but the original front room. Dad, one of the most popular personalities ever to grace this bigger-than-life town, passed away in 1995. O’Hara’s closed for good in 1981. Today the site is home to the Chez Jean-Pierre Bistro, which opened a room to honor the memory of Vincent J. O’Hara Jr., my father.”
Note to readers: The Tropical Sun is a predecessor to The Palm Beach Post. Several area libraries have partial collections of the newspaper. But no issues from June 30 to Dec. 31, 1915, can be found. Can you help?

Tags: celebrities, Palm Beach, unanswered questions

Several Presidents Have Visited Area

Readers: Last week I concluded that Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897) was probably the first sitting president to visit Palm Beach County.
Cleveland’s predecessor, Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885), visited North and Central Florida in the spring of 1883 but got only within about 60 miles of Lake Okeechobee. So Cleveland still leads the pack. He sure wasn’t the last.
Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909), William Howard Taft (1909-1913) and Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) are said to have come through. In 1929, President-elect Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) toured areas still recovering from the great 1928 hurricane. He later approved the dike that bears his name. Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman visited before becoming president.
Of course, John F. Kennedy’s winter White House was on Palm Beach. Lyndon Johnson visited Kennedy’s ailing father in February 1962.
Richard Nixon had a vacation home in Key Biscayne but apparently didn’t come north.
President Gerald Ford campaigned in West Palm Beach and Lantana before the 1976 election.
Candidate Ronald Reagan stopped for ice cream in Boca Raton during the 1980 primaries; as president, he didn’t return until September 1988.
In 1997, Bill Clinton twisted his knee just across the county line at the Jupiter Island home of Greg Norman, resulting in a trip to St. Mary’s Medical Center.
George Bush (the first) vacationed in Gulf Stream as president-elect and often visited his mother in Jupiter Island as vice president. His son, whose tight win in Palm Beach County’s 2000 election fiasco propelled him to office, didn’t make his first visit to the county as president until January 2004, when he’d been in office three years.
Readers: The Sept. 29 column on the birth of the personal computer in Boca Raton prompted a reader to find fault with these statements: “Until then, computers usually filled a room and could only be used by engineers.” And, “Competitors had created small computers, but they were aimed at academics and
hobbyists.”
The reader, who didn’t want her name used, suggested we should have pointed out the role of the early Apple and Radio Shack computers. I checked The Palm Beach Post archives, and stories reflect that, while other small computers, including Apple, were out there, they did not use “off-the-shelf” parts, and
IBM’s inventors used common, non-proprietary components. It was the IBM PC that created giants out of Microsoft, Intel, Dell and HP-Compaq.

Tags: celebrities

La Coquille Once Hosted Rich, Famous

Readers: Last week reader Nicholas R. DeVita of South Palm Beach asked about the rerouting of State Road A1A in Palm Beach. DeVita had another question.
Q: When was the La Coquille Beach Club, which was at the present site of the Ritz-Carlton Manalapan, built?
A: Spelman Prentice, grandson of John D. Rockefeller, built La Coquille Club in 1952. In the 1950s and 1960s, it gained fame as a tropical oceanfront retreat for notables such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Vanderbilt, Ford, Lodge and Whitney families. Tuxedoes were often standard dinner attire. National Hockey League owners and players association representatives held their winter meetings there.
Prentice sold the place in 1962 to Robert Evans, chair of American Motors. The club lost its sheen in the 1970s, and after a succession of owners, it fell into financial ruin. It was boarded up in 1978. In 1985, Evans took back the 7.32 acres on the courthouse steps by paying its $4 million mortgage.
Evans then sold it to Virginia hotelier Norman Groh for $13.5 million. Groh was unable to obtain financing, and in 1988, he sold the site for $12 million to a triumvirate of a Japanese investment group, the Midwest-based Ameritech phone company, and Indianapolis developer and Manalapan resident Melvin Simon
of mall and NBA Pacers fame. The 270-room Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach, built for $100 million, opened in June 1991.
Staff researcher Krista Pegnetter contributed to this column.

Tags: celebrities