Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
QUEEN FOR A DAY
QUEEN FOR A DAY. A popular radio and television show that ran for twenty years, the program awarded prizes to women contestants selected from the audience after they explained why they needed a particular item. Dubuque resident Irene Ruff, the first of twenty contestants called on stage when the show made a special appearance in Chicago, was crowned "Queen for a Day" on January 13, 1959.
Ruff explained that she wanted an air conditioner (because she was asthmatic) and half a cow for the Catholic Day Nursery that cared for her children while she worked. She won the air conditioner, $150 to buy the meat, refrigerator, clothes dryer, and wardrobe of clothes, a diamond wristwatch, and a twelve-day cruise with her husband to the Bahamas and Bermuda.