Before becoming a Tony Award winning producer, Bonnie Comley, won the talent competition in the Junior Miss Massachusetts program in 1977. Andy Gibb performed for the audience and the Junior Misses participating at the 1980 national finals. One year later, the format known as "theater in the round" was introduced for the finals and its television broadcasts. Mary Frann returned for the finals in 1985 to co-host with Bruce Jenner. The outreach program "Be Your Best Self" became the official platform of the America's Junior Miss program in 1987, when Wisconsin's Junior Miss Chuti Tiu became the first non-Caucasian national winner. America's Junior Miss 1980 Julie Bryan Moran hosted the finals in 1988, the program's final time as a yearly event on a major television network. The national finals were moved from the Mobile Civic Center arena to the theater section in 1989. Among the Junior Miss participants in this decade who would become well known were Georgia's Julie Moran, who would anchor the syndicated TV program "Entertainment Tonight" and 1986 Junior Miss Debra Messing of Rhode Island, whose acting career led to earning one of the leading roles in the sitcom "Will & Grace". At the end of the Eighties, the name of the program was changed to "America's Young Woman of the Year" to renew interest, but it was later realized that this new identity was unlike the long established brand of America's Junior Miss that interested many participants. The name "America's Junior Miss" would be restored in 1993. In 1994, the America's Junior Miss finals once again became a national event on television. One of the guests this time was actor Brian Austin Green of the TV series "Beverly Hills, 90210". One year later, the NBC Television Network stopped televising the finals. The judging criteria for the local and national levels of the program would be revamped in 1995. With help from David G. Bronner of the Retirement Systems of Alabama and Raycom Media, viewers got to see Alabama's Junior Miss Tyrenda Williams become the first black America's Junior Miss in 1997 and earn $30,000 in scholarship out of a total of $97,500 for the winners. The number of stations airing the national finals would increase from 50 to 177 in 1998. The 1999 finals, hosted by 1976 Junior Miss Deborah Norville aired tape-delayed on The Nashville Network, which would air the event live in 2000 and 2001. In 2000, for the first time ever, a scholarship of $50,000 was the top prize and Utah Junior Miss Jesika Henderson earned it along with the title of America's Junior Miss that year.