Don't cross a redhead
Posted on 04/20/2007 4:54:35 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Ex-Miss America shoots thief's tires 82-year-old wielded snub-nosed .38: 'He was probably wetting his pants' Posted: April 20, 2007 2:18 p.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Venus Ramey (Photo: MissAmerica.org) Tough isn't a word necessarily associated with Miss America, but three thieves arrested after their truck tires were shot out by 82-year-old Venus Ramey might beg to differ.
Ramey, who won the elite beauty crown in 1944, confronted one of the three robbers on her farm in Waynesburg, Ky., about 140 miles south of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
"He was probably wetting his pants," said Ramey, who balanced on her walking stick as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.
(Story continues below)
Ramey said thieves for some time have been breaking into a building on her property where she stores century-old steel-shaping machines and other equipment to sell for scrap, according to the Enquirer.
On April 13, while feeding horses, she followed her dog when it ran over to the building, where a truck was parked in front.
She confronted a man who told her he was "scrapping" and would not leave.
"I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey told the Cincinnati paper.
She didn't think twice about shooting.
"I just went and did it. If they'd even dared come close to me, they'd be 6 feet under by now," she said.
Ramey flagged down a driver who called 911, and three people eventually were arrested, including one at the scene.
"They've been stealing from me for years. Those good-for-nothing slobs," she told the Enquirer.
Ramey began as a showgirl at the Beverly Hills Supper Club then ended up in Washington, D.C., working for the war effort, where she won a beauty contest. In 1944 she became Miss America, representing the District of Columbia.
She was the first redheaded Miss America and the first to be photographed in color, according to her bio on the beauty contest's website.
Ramey performed in vaudeville, and her picture adorned a B-17 bomber that flew 68 missions over Germany in World War II.
According to the Miss America website, Ramey was sought out for a major Hollywood film by legendary producer Milton Sperling of Warner Brothers Studio. But she was disgusted with show business and returned home to her Kentucky tobacco farm, married and began raising her two sons.
In Cincinnati in the 1970s, she helped lead a civic renewal project and made an unsuccessful bid for City Council.
Ramey returned to farm life in 1990 but hasn't found it entirely tranquil.
"I'm trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another," she said.
Ping!
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Don't cross a redhead
This is one inspiring story.
Venus Ramey
Miss America 1944
She entertained in service camps, sold war bonds and toured in vaudeville. In addition to a citation from the United States Treasury Department for her work in the War Bond effort, Venus Ramsey's picture was painted on the side of fighter planes. These planes made sixty-eight raids over war torn Germany, and never lost a man. At a time when it seemed the country was losing the war, this story made the Associated Press and built a nation's morale.
(from the Miss American website)
Arg....the love of my life is 50 years too old for me!
Don't mess with THAT generation.
Ooh, baby! That’s the kind of sugar papa likes!
What a woman!
Yippee-Ki-Yeah for fiery Red Heads!
I just LOVE this story to pieces.
GO VENUS! We need more women like her!
Great story! What a feisty old gal!
You got that right Venus.
I might just have a new tagline!
Wow! This lady is something else. Here’s some more of her in the press from 1999:
“Former Miss America Venus Ramey is taking on the U.S. government over its tobacco policy.
Acting as her own lawyer and seeking $300 billion in damages, Ramey filed a federal lawsuit last Friday against the U.S. Justice Department.
Ramey, who was Miss America 1944, is now 74 and living on a farm north of Eubank. She wants to save the tobacco industry from possible extinction and get farmers back on their feet. . . Ramey, who represented the District of Columbia in the Miss America pageant, said her family has grown tobacco for 350 years and she has been a tobacco farmer for 50 years. . . The lawsuit accuses the government and President Clinton of trying ``to destroy a successful, lucrative American industry.’’
http://www.tobacco.org/articles/lawsuit/ramey/
Would be worse the other way around.
Kentucky has always bred the most beautiful women in the world. The very first Miss America came from the street just down below me. She must be deceased now and I can’t even remember her name.
God bless that generation!
(I am embarrassed for mine, though we have some good folk too.)
What spunk! I hope I’m in that good shape at that age.
This is a story made for this forum!
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