They carried titles like Miss Transportation, Miss Houston Air Defense, Miss Blueprint and Miss Sandwich.

They wore sashes, cut ribbons, shared a stage with celebrities and — for a select few — saw a world beyond the borders of Harris County.

These were the beauty queens of Houston, during pageants' midcentury peak.

Beauty contests go back to the 19th century, long before the first Miss America pageant in 1921, says Kathy Peiss, professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania. (About the same time that Miss America kicked off in Atlantic City, Galveston got in on the act with its International Pageant of Pulchritude.)

These events continued through the war years and seemingly peaked by the mid-20th century. By then, beauty standards were evolving, the makeup industry expanded and the notion of a beautiful woman introducing a product became more common, Peiss says.

"In many cases [these beauty contests were] about promoting the company or the industry, and beautiful women being a kind of marker of a modern society," Peiss said. "At least that's how it was viewed in the 1950s. They would be almost like advertising display or marketing display for a whole variety of industries."

Pageants peaked in the '50s, but lost ground amid the social upheaval of the '60s. Even the contests themselves changed: Miss Photoflash, Miss Splash Day Princess and Miss Exquisite Form gave way to Contemporary Woman for 1968 and Total Woman of 1966.

In their heyday, photos of contestants and winners regularly appeared in newspapers. Many of the photos seen here ran in the Houston Post.

What lasting effect did the contests have on women's lives? To find out, we tracked down four beauty queens from that era.

Miss Houston Gaylynn Baker, June 1957. Miss Houston Gaylynn Baker, June 1957. Photo: Unknown, Houston Post Photo: Unknown, Houston Post Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close beautyqueens-gaylynn baker 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

'It was the only chance I had'

As a student in Cleburne in the mid-1950s, Elizabeth Gaylynn Baker desperately wanted a date for football games. But boys tended to look past her. She also dreamed of performing on Broadway.

In 1957, she was working as an announcer and model for the late show on KPRC (Channel 2), when men with the Junior Chamber of Commerce dropped by the station and asked her to represent them in the Miss Houston pageant.

She thought beauty contests were silly. But they also offered a chance to achieve her dreams.

"Boy," she says, "am I ever glad I said yes."

The girl who couldn't get a date in high school ended up winning. Jerry Lewis presented her with the trophy. The prize? A two-week trip to Las Vegas.

There, Baker caught the eye of Al Freeman, publicist at The Sands Hotel and Casino. He offered to help get a foot in the door with modeling agencies and connect her with the theater community.

She never returned to the television station. With her mom's blessing, Baker was off to New York. She appeared on TV with entertainers like Steve Allen and honed her acting skills with John Cassavetes.

Now living in Los Angeles, she is an author and filmmaker. One of her recent projects was the documentary "We Know Not What We Do," which explores our relationship to the environment. She describes it as a call "for a moral and spiritual shift in the way we live on the planet and the way we treat each other."

If she'd been popular in high school -- if she'd had dates to football games -- her life might have turned out differently.

"Maybe my wonderful life that I'm really grateful for would have never unfolded," she said.

Sue Carroll Brugier (Verheyden), Miss Typical Texan, March 12, 1956. Sue Carroll Brugier (Verheyden), Miss Typical Texan, March 12, 1956. Photo: Unknown, Houston Post Photo: Unknown, Houston Post Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close beautyqueen - brugier verheyden 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

From Denver Harbor to Berlin

Were you a beauty queen? Did you participate in, and win, beauty contests in Houston in the 1950s and 1960s? If you have photos or mementos from those days we'd like to interview you and turn this into a regular feature for 2018. Contact J.R. Gonzales at john.gonzales@chron.com or 713-362-6163.

As Sue Verheyden was growing up, in Denver Harbor, she didn't dream of working in Hollywood. Her interests lay in academics. Winning pageants, such as Miss Houston 1955, "provided me with the money to buy my books at Rice," she said.

Verheyden was also named Miss Typical Texan. For that, she was paired with actor Richard Widmark at the Houston premiere of his film "Backlash" at the Majestic Theatre. For two days, the two appeared on stage to talk about the film.

"He was an incredibly nice person," she said. "He seemed to care about the people around him."

As Miss Exquisite Form Texas, Verheyden traveled to New York to compete for the national title. She didn't win, but the top prize, a screen test in Hollywood, didn't interest her that much anyway. The consolation prize, a trip to France and Germany, was more appealing. While there, she visited a pen pal and saw a divided Berlin.

"It opened my eyes to see how cruel people could be who just wanted to go from one place to another," Verheyden said.

After teaching biology and physiology in California for nearly 30 years, Verheyden and her husband retired to central Texas.

Being a beauty queen? "I haven't really thought much about it through the years," she said.

Bonnie Robinson (Assad), Miss Houston 1967, at Rice University, May 1967. Bonnie Robinson (Assad), Miss Houston 1967, at Rice University, May 1967. Photo: Unknown, Houston Post Photo: Unknown, Houston Post Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close beautyqueen -- robinson assad 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

A stay at the Flagship Hotel

When Bonnie Assad was approached to compete for the Miss Houston 1967 crown, she had a question for the organizer.

"I said, 'Well, what kind of prizes do you win?' And so she was telling me the prizes and I said, 'That sounds like fun.' "

Assad, then a Rice student, won the Miss Houston title. With it came a ring, some clothes and a weeklong stay at the Flagship Hotel in Galveston.

"No cars, no fur coats," she said. "But for back then it was a lot."

From there Assad went on to win the Miss Texas crown and compete in the Miss USA pageant. In 1968, she was named Miss Houston World.

Appearances at trade shows and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo parade followed. Her face and figure soon appeared in ads for Oshman's, Conoco and Slender Bolic health centers. But she wasn't interested in parlaying that exposure into show business.

It did however, put her on another career path.

One of the contest judges had a real estate school and offered a course as one of the prizes. She got her broker's license and has been involved in real estate here ever since.

"I knew for sure I did not want to be secretary," she said. "I did not want to sit in the same office everyday.

"And that's what fun about real estate. No two deals are alike. You drive all over the town and it's a lot of fun."

From the June 23, 1963, Houston Post: Miss Sandra Aycock (Dossett), center, her arms laden with trophies, smiled through her tears when she won the title, Miss Houston of 1963, in the Sheraton-Lincoln Hotel. Other finalists congratulate her. From the left: Linda Jericho, Diane Balloun, Miss Aycock, Joan Neel (partly hidden), and Pat Moran. Sandra, 18, a green-eyed brunette, will represent Houston in the Miss Texas Pageant in Fort Worth July 30-Aug 5. She is a graduate of San Jacinto High School. Runners-up in the contest were Jannis Stallworth and Charlotte Ford. less From the June 23, 1963, Houston Post: Miss Sandra Aycock (Dossett), center, her arms laden with trophies, smiled through her tears when she won the title, Miss Houston of 1963, in the Sheraton-Lincoln Hotel. ... more Photo: Jim Morgan, Handout Photo: Jim Morgan, Handout Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close beautyqueen - aycock dossett 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

A date with Eddie Fisher

"Texas," Frank Sinatra called her: Sandy Dossett, Miss Houston 1963.

The two crossed paths when Dossett, her mother and aunt traveled to Las Vegas, a prize for winning the crown.

While there she went on a dinner date with pop singer Eddie Fisher.

"It was very boring," Dossett laughs. "He was so dry. He wasn't fun at all. I think he and Elizabeth Taylor just split up or something, and he was still all in pieces over that. And then he has to come over there and meet me? Well, that wasn't fun."

The San Jacinto High School alumna was no stranger to beauty contests. In the early 1960s she racked up titles like Miss Jaycee Sports Car, Miss Sylvan Beach and Miss Slippery Rock — twice.

"My mother put me in beauty pageants," she said. "I was in beauty pageants like when I was 3 years old."

Winning pageants taught her to converse with a group of people, something Dossett had to do often at conventions appearances.

In 1963, when the film "Bye Bye Birdie" premiered here, shyness wasn't an option: "I had to walk around and meet and greet people that were going to the theater with a birdcage on my head with a live bird in it."

Her crowns and trophies are now in the hands of her granddaughters. The Mississippi resident says she enjoyed those days, but her later life — matrimony, motherhood, a career as a decorator — beats out meeting the Chairman of the Board.

"I did it," she said. "It was fun, but it wasn't who I was."