Paula Schneider

The Miss Bolivia is a national beauty pageant in Bolivia.

The pageant was founded in 1930, and the first winner, Rosa Pizarro Araoz of Tarija, was sent to compete in Miss Latin America held in Miami, United States.

The Miss Bolivia contest was organized for the first time in 1930 when the Miss Latin America pageant, headquartered in Miami, requested all participating countries to hold the national event to elect the country representatives.

In the case of Bolivia, the newspaper El Diario took charge and coordinated with the prefectures and academies of fine arts of each department.

So that, through commissions, each department could proceed with the election of their representative for the national contest, which was sponsored by the Miami National Bathing Beauty Pageant.

The regional competitions happened in Potosí, Lapaz, Oruro, Tarija, Santa Cruz, and Cochabamba.

In the national final of Miss Bolivia 1930, held at the Rotary Club on February 15 in Lapaz, the representative of Tarija, Rosa Pizarro Araoz, was named the winner and was awarded by the first lady of Bolivia, Luisa Salinas Vega.

Araoz then competed in the Miss Latin America in Miami, United States, where eight Latin countries participated, including Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Panama Canal Zone, Peru, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, of whom the representative of Panama, Melinda Boyd, was elected the winner.

In 1959, the contest was managed by Gloria Suárez de Limpias who was the event's director until 1979.