Former News Center Maine Anchor Cindy Williams Was a Miss USA Contestant
Cindy Williams retired from the anchor desk of News Center Maine in 2021, but did you know that a few years before she started her career in Portland, she almost won the Miss USA pageant?
In 1990, The "dream team" of Pat Callaghan, Cindy Williams, Bruce Glasier and Joe Cupo dominated the television ratings year after year because these four were like family to viewers. But just four years prior, in 1986, she was in the Miss USA pageant standing on stage next to a then unknown, Halle Berry.
Cindy was Miss Mississippi in 1986 and went on to the Miss USA pageant in Miami with host Bob Barker. In her interview, Cindy said he was currently the anchor of the 10 o'clock news on the NBC affiliate in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Bob asked her to pretend that she was reporting from the pageant, and Cindy totally wowed the judges, the crowd, and Bob.
Okay, so Bob could be a real jerk sometimes, but Cindy played off it well.
Shen went on to be one of the five finalists and was interviewed one last time by Bob before a winner was chosen.
Miss USA went to Texas with Cindy winning third runner-up. Miss Ohio, Halle Berry was the first runner-up, missing the crowd by one spot. It didn't matter though. She went on to bigger and better things, and so did Cindy.
A few years after the pageant, Cindy moved to Maine and settled down making it her home ever since.
She still has it thirty-plus years later. She was photographed by Shelly Rose Photography as Miss September in a calendar to raise funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Cindy didn't win Miss USA, but she's still winning the hearts of Mainers after all these years.