Carol Ann Laverne Morris – Beauty, Brains, Brawn, and Breathtaking – Iowa’s National Treasure - Miss Universe

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Miss Universe – The Pride of Iowa

So, Ottumwa, Iowa is not exactly a household name to most people and were it not for Radar O’Reilly on Mash, whose fictional hometown was Ottumwa, Iowa, or Tom Arnold who married Roseanne Barr for a time and starred in movies like True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger, one might not know it exists.

Could you ever imagine this small town in Southeastern Iowa was also the home of someone who earned the title of the most beautiful woman in the world?

I know, it is truly stretch but truth often involves some rather strange situations.  This is one.

You see, once upon a time back in the Golden Age of the 1950’s for a brief moment of time Ottumwa could brag about being home to the most beautiful woman in the world.

Not only was she beautiful but smart, athletic, played violin, sang in the choir, and was a preacher’s daughter.

Let me introduce you to Carol Ann Laverne Morris, perhaps the most famous person to ever grow up in Ottumwa, Iowa.

    

Born April 8, 1936, in Omaha, Nebraska Carol Morris lived for a time in Scott City, Kansas before moving to Ottumwa, Iowa where she spent most of her early life and attended Ottumwa High School.

The only child of Minister Laverne Morris and his wife, Carol became a lifeguard at the public swimming pool, taught swimming, and was an exceptional swim team member.

She was also smart, for in high school Carol finished 4^th in her class of 300 students.  At the same time Carol was a violin virtuoso and a member of the church choir.

Attending college at Drake University in Des Moines where she studied elementary education, she became a swimming star and in 1954 she broke the national junior Olympics backstroke record.

This intellectual, athletic, musically inspired and beautiful young woman was invited to join the prestigious Kappa Alpha Theta international sorority, the oldest Greek sorority in America for women.

 

Also during three years at Drake she played viola with the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra.

That was when Carol developed into a stunning 5-foot 7-inch beauty weighing 131 pounds with blue eyes and nearly dark brown hair.

 

Perhaps she was destined to be a beauty queen when, during high school, she won the Miss Ottumwa competition.  She was sponsored by the South Ottumwa Boosters Club.

While at Drake University she entered and won the Miss Iowa beauty pageant of 1954 and in 1955 represented Iowa in the Miss America competition.  In the talent portion she played the song Stardust on her violin.

The next year, 1956, she represented Iowa in the Miss USA beauty pageant which she won in Long Beach, California.

Her final competition was the 1956 Miss Universe contest where she beat out 83 worldwide competitors to become only the second American and the first Iowan to win the international honor.

 

In fact, no other Iowan has ever won the Miss USA or Miss Universe competitions.

Miss Universe Competition

During her year reigning as Miss Universe she toured with Bob Hope and got to meet Presidents Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover.

 

Miss Universe 1956 Carol Morris, was a Guest on 'What's My Line' Show (Aired August 5, 1956).  Carol also was “mystery” guest on two of the most popular game shows of the 1950’s What’s My Line and To Tell the Truth (Aired April 23, 1957).  She was on the same What’s My Line episode as Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago.

She did manage to return home during the year to Ottumwa where over 2,000 people made the 12-mile trip to greet her at the airport while thousands swarmed the parade downtown including me, to see the stunning beauty and her four-foot tall Miss Universe trophy. 

Joining the festivities was Iowa Governor Leo Hoegh.

One of the prizes from the competition was an acting contract for a year at Universal Studios after her year as Queen and she co-starred with actor Jeff Chandler in her debut movie, Crazy Love.

A movie and television career followed and she acted in many productions such as the movie Born to be Loved and a TV episode of Ozzie and Harriet but performed in her last movie, Paradise Valley, released in 1962.

In June of 1959 at age 23 Carol married a 45-year old Texas oil tycoon from Houston, Ed “Buzz” Burke.  In April 1960 they had their first child, a boy, and then two more children.

Her husband died and Carol remarried and had one further child.

In 2007 she resurfaced in the Hollywood scene as Executive Producer of the motion picture The Cake Eaters, with Mary Stuart Masterson producing and directing and Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Ashley, and Bruce Dern starring.

According to friends, Carol still lives in Texas and is doing well, happy, and content with life.  From an old Ottumwa friend and classmate I got the following update on Carol.

"Carol lives in Houston, Texas and is as lovely and sweet as ever.  Carol is very family oriented and does not live in the past that much. She never attends any of her OHS class reunions either!  She loves her life in Texas, but does respond to her Ottumwa friends when notified!"

Cyber Security and Social Media - America's Achilles Heel - Threatens People, Corporations and Institutions

Is it Time for Divine Intervention?

For over nearly 20 years I have been writing about the Internet and cyber security, in particular the sorry state of cyber-security on the Internet. During that time internet theft, hacking and multi-billion dollar business losses have become the cost of doing business in our modern world.

The dot.com bust of 2000, just seventeen years ago, demonstrated how the booming Internet was way over-valued by the greed mongers on Wall Street and in less than two years Internet companies lost an astonishing 78% of their valuation sending many an investor in hot Internet stocks to the poor house.  The stock market downturn of 2002 caused the loss of $5 trillion in the market value of companies from March 2000 to October 2002.

It was the first real sign of the immaturity of the Internet corporate culture. Since then the progress in improved business plans and lessons learned from the bust, has resulted in an expanded use of the Internet, but the evolution of cyber security has been dismal. While processing power and software sophistication has been leaping generations ahead in recent years, computer security through legacy systems, those that have been around for years, remain stuck in early generation technology trying to meet a need far beyond the capabilities of the past, or even the present.

Now, nearly two decades after the past Internet debacle, the Internet, with it's lack of government regulation and no borders, has become the premiere and preferred method of crime in the 21st century extending from no holds barred pornography to forced child prostitution, from stealing music and movies to raiding bank and credit card accounts, from stealing proprietary corporate information to hacking into top secret government files.

So complete is the saturation of crime into the Internet that it reigns supreme in terms of bank, credit card and cell phone theft, pornography and child slavery, prostitution and illegal gambling, theft of music and movies to pedophiles stalking our children. Yet there have been no real innovations in computer security for nearly a decade. Then again, the legacy security providers are making billions of dollars selling virtually obsolete cyber protection so why would they change?

In the world of cyber security, if you rely on older systems to meet new technological advances you become victims of the cyber criminals who have stayed one step ahead of existing security systems.

Are you or your children safe on the Internet? Of course not. Can you be safe with the right cyber security? Of course not if it is a legacy system because it is like trying to play a digital download on an old cassette recorder. Legacy systems were the first  couple of generations in security and they are now technically obsolete. But there are new generation security systems that are designed to meet your needs of the future, not just the past.

Using fascinating new technologies to enhance the stealth or invisible appearance of your records and personal information, using algorithms never before in existence and incredible cloning techniques that may only be found in the most technologically advanced intelligence and defense security systems, there may be hope for internet users, especially the unsuspecting youth who have become obsessed with the Internet.  But it may take years before the intelligence agencies share those advancements with you.

We have been made aware of impending announcements of historical new achievements in Internet or cyber security that will finally make the protection of computer users the first consideration instead of the last consideration in the evolvement of computer technology. You should watch for these announcements and check them out as it may finally give you the piece of mind that big brother and the cyber thieves may no longer control the Internet as our dependence on the Internet continues to grow at warp speed. There are new ways of protecting your rights and records on the immediate horizon.

Social Media

The same cannot be said for social media.  The purveyors of evil have embraced social media as the preferred method of corrupting people and stealing souls and in spite of warnings of the dangers of social media by this author and many others over the years, the industry and government response to such warnings has largely fallen on deaf ears.

Shenanigans, scams, fake news, and predatory practices have thrived in the social sector just as the commercial sectors have begun to address the multitude of cyber problems.  In terms of social media greed has been the rule, fraud has been the vehicle, and foolishness on the part of users has been the result.

It is no accident social media sites allowed millions of fake accounts to be established by the Russians, the Democrats, and Republicans in order to profits from the massive campaign spending for president in 2016.  As The Washington Post reported last April;

"The final price tag for the 2016 election is in: $6.5 billion for the presidential and congressional elections combined, according to campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.org.

The presidential contest — primaries and all — accounts for $2.4 billion of that total. The other $4 billion or so went to congressional races. The tally includes spending by campaigns, party committees and outside sources. It's actually down, slightly, in inflation-adjusted terms from 2012 and 2008."

That did not include the tens of millions of dollars paid to social media sites for political ads by the tens of thousands fake political organizations.

As the truth continues to dribble out the social media outlets have ramped up their campaign to oppose any effort of the government to regulate the  Internet, and the progressive and liberal special interest groups have come to their defense.

Government regulation is not a threat to freedom of speech because few social media users share their thoughts on politics.  The vast majority of controversial and outright lies come from the fake news generators hiding under the guise of being advocates for the Democrat or Republican parties.

Wake up Washington, the election is now over, it has been for over a year.  Yet millions of unsuspecting Americans continue to share false lies from the various special interest sites as if it were their own idea.  People that blindly copy and paste information from false sites and who deny contradictory comments or challenges to the information are every bit as responsible for the threat to our democracy as the evil forces behind such sites.

Are we really so stupid as to not see the potential threat to our religions, institutions, and way of life such hate mongering has brought to the fore?  We perpetuate the threat to our government and way of life by continuing to deny the truth.  We become instruments of evil by empowering hate and we become executioners to our desired way of life by allowing ourselves to be used both those dark forces.

Is the time now for Divine intervention?

If there is to be no meaningful regulation of the Internet industry, then man has shown we are incapable of protecting ourselves and our children from harm and destruction.  There will be Divine intervention if we fail to act as the cloud of darkness descending upon the Earth is attempting to undermine the Love of God and the example of Jesus for finding salvation.

Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Holy Week leading up to the crucifixion and death of Jesus that demonstrated the most powerful miracles, magic, and love of the Creator in the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus, is rapidly approaching.

Divine intervention in human affairs could very well begin during this sacred and long forgotten series of steps Jesus took to demonstrate the height of good and the depth of evil inherent in humanity.