page_title: Tara Conner
section_title: Year in the life of Miss USA
hierarchical_section_title: Tara Conner / Year in the life of Miss USA
context_page_description: Tara Elizabeth Conner is an American model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss USA 2006 and has also competed in the Miss Teen USA and Miss Universe pageants. Apart from her role as Miss USA, Conner has been employed as a model. She was a featured model on the HDNet series Bikini Destinations in 2004, posing in Lake Tahoe. She has also held the titles Miss Kentucky Teen USA 2002, Miss Kentucky County Fair 2004, and Miss Kentucky USA 2006.
  In late 2006, Conner became the center of a public scandal after she was caught drinking underage, using cocaine, and kissing Miss Teen USA Katie Blair at a New York nightclub. She was allowed to retain her title, provided she enter a drug rehabilitation program. Since then Conner has worked as an advocate against drug addiction.
context_section_description: Immediately after winning the pageant, Conner moved into a Trump Place apartment that she shared with sister titleholders Zuleyka Rivera (Miss Universe 2006) and Katie Blair (Miss Teen USA 2006) during her reign. Her first week in New York included many media events, which included print interviews and spots on CNN Headline News, Live! With Regis and Kelly, and The Early Show.
  On April 29, 2006, Conner returned to pageant host city Baltimore to make appearances connected with the Volvo Ocean Race, sailing on board the yacht Black Pearl. and then returned to New York, appearing with Miss Universe 2005 Natalie Glebova of Canada at the Invest in Our World Benefit on May 3, 2006.
  In the first week of May she briefly returned to Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby and was a celebrity guest at the Mint Jubilee Gala, attending the event with fellow national beauty queen Jennifer Berry, Miss America 2006 of Miss Oklahoma and former Miss Kentucky USA titleholders Lizzie Arnold and Kristen Johnson, as well as other notable beauty queens. After returning to New York, Conner participated in charity events and in a photo shoot with official photographer Fadil Berisha.
  On May 18, 2006, Conner rang the opening bell at the American Stock Exchange. She returned to Kentucky for her official homecoming in early June 2006. where she met with servicemen, with whom she posed for the July 2006 cover of Kentucky Monthly magazine, and volunteered with local charities.
  On July 19, 2006, Conner appeared as a guest judge in an episode of the third season of the Bravo! series Project Runway. The contestants on the show competed against each other to create a dress for her to wear in the Miss Universe pageant. The dress was later featured in the evening gown competition of the pageant.
  In August 2006, Conner met newly crowned Miss Universe Zuleyka Rivera and outgoing Miss Teen USA Allie LaForce in California where they were involved with media events, before all three travelled to Palm Springs, California for the Miss Teen USA 2006 pageant.  On August 15 LaForce crowned Katie Blair of Montana as the new Miss Teen USA, and Conner, Rivera and Blair returned to New York the day after the pageant. Later that month, Conner and Blair attended a number of high-profile parties in New York including a Land Rover event featuring Maria Sharapova, a U.S. Open Kick-Off Party, a pre-Video Music Awards party hosted by Ciara and Missy Elliott and another Video Music Awards party hosted by Nick Lachey.
  In September 2006, Conner traveled to Boston, Massachusetts to promote the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure, as her predecessor Chelsea Cooley had done the year previously. She then travelled to Colorado to support the Cheryl Shackelford Foundation and to Pennsylvania to attend an event hosted by the USO of Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. In October 2006, Conner spent time volunteering with more charities, including Gilda's Club, Best Buddies, and Project Sunshine, before embarking on a USO tour to Italy and Turkey in November 2006, where she met her brother, who is living in Italy.
  During Thanksgiving weekend of November 2006, Conner appeared on the Showboat float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, becoming the fourth Miss USA to appear in the parade. After attending the Miss Kentucky USA 2007 pageant and crowning Michelle Banzer as successor to her state title, she and Rivera traveled to Cannes, France and Italy where they made promotional appearances.
  In December 2006, Conner should have celebrated her 21st birthday with a special event held at Pure Nightclub at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip near Las Vegas, Nevada, but the event was later canceled because of the ongoing scandal.
  Following her time in a rehabilitation center in Pennsylvania during December and January, Conner returned to the public stage in February and was interviewed by a number of news outlets. She made her first public appearance on February 4, 2007, when she, Katie Blair and Zuleyka Rivera appeared as models for Tadashi, a sponsor of the pageant, at a fashi
caption: Tara Conner supporting the USO in New York City, October 2006
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