Carole Gist
Encyclopedia
Carole Anne-Marie Gist was the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 woman to win the Miss USA
Miss USA
The Miss USA beauty contest has been held annually since 1952 to select the United States entrant in the Miss Universe pageant. The Miss Universe Organization operates both pageants, as well as Miss Teen USA...

 title. Gist first won the title of Miss Michigan USA
Miss Michigan USA
The Miss Michigan USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Michigan in the Miss USA pageant.Michigan is recognized by as being within the top 15 states in terms of Miss USA success. Their first Miss USA victory was in 1990, and notable because Carole Gist...

 and went on to win the Miss USA crown on March 2, 1990 in Wichita
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...

, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

. She is of mixed African-American and Cherokee heritage.

The 1990 pageant had representatives from Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 (Brenda Leithleiter
Brenda Leithleiter
Brenda Leithleiter Sharman is a beauty queen from Vinings, Georgia who has competed in the Miss USA pageant.Leithleiter won the Miss Georgia USA 1990 title in November 1989. She went on to represent Georgia in the Miss USA 1990 pageant broadcast live from Wichita, Kansas on March 2, 1990...

), Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 (Karin Elizabeth Meyer), Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

 (Tiffany Tenfelde), South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 (Gina Tolleson
Gina Tolleson
Gina Marie Tolleson is a model and the second Miss World titleholder from the United States.-Miss World:...

, who as 1st runner-up then went on to represent the country at the Miss World
Miss World
The Miss World pageant is the oldest surviving major international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951...

 pageant, winning the title) and Karin Hartz of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 making up with Gist the Top 6 finalists.

Gist, a 5 foot Detroit native, 20 years old at the time, eventually became first runner-up to Mona Grudt
Mona Grudt
Mona Grudt Bittrick became the first Norwegian to capture the Miss Universe title in 1990.-Miss Universe:...

 of Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 in the Miss Universe
Miss Universe
Miss Universe is an annual international beauty contest that is run by the Miss Universe Organization. The pageant is the most publicized beauty contest in the world with 600 million viewers....

 pageant of that same year.

She was also the first contestant from Michigan to win Miss USA, and broke the five-year streak of winners from Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

.

Gist was a graduate of Cass Technical High School
Cass Technical High School
The Cass Tech Technicians football team is a high school football program in Division 1 Public School League, representing the prestigious Cass Technical High School in Detroit, MI. Cass Tech High School has long been recognized nationwide for its extraordinary football program dating back to its...

 in Detroit. At the time of her coronation, she was a junior marketing and management major at Northwood University
Northwood University
Northwood University is a private university with multiple locations. The school has four residential campuses: Midland, Michigan , Cedar Hill, Texas , West Palm Beach, Florida and a joint program with Hotel Institute Montreux in Montreux, Switzerland, began in 2001...

 at Midland
Midland, Michigan
Midland is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan in the Tri-Cities region of the state. It is the county seat of Midland County. The city's population was 41,863 as of the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area....

, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. Carole co-hosted a show on the WORD gospel network. She is currently married with two children and works as an executive assistant for a construction company. She has also worked as a personal trainer and fitness instructor at Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...

in Detroit and is a graduate of the Northwood University in Midland, Michigan.
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