>Miss America is famous,

Is Miss America even famous these days? I sure couldn't name one--though perhaps I'd recognize names from years past.

I tend to agree that if you go back a number of decades more local people were probably fairly well-known locally but I'm not sure I'd put the top guy at the Elks Lodge in the "famous" category. Draw a small enough circle in geography or niche interest and a lot of people are notable to some degree.

I think they are famous in the same way Nobel prize winners are very well known within their branch of the scientific community.

In both cases they easily qualify for a Wikipedia page though I doubt most people can name last years winners.

To some degree, of course, it's because fame/notability in the Miss America case isn't really separable from relatively reliable third-party sources (though I wouldn't put a lot of money down on whatever life story agents and PR people have concocted). The same tends to be true of actors, pro athletes, and politicians above some minimal level. Even senior company executives and academics may not have much written about them.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/famous#Adjective gives this counter-example:

  2. In the public eye.

    Some people are only famous within their city.

A DDG search for examples easily finds things like:

"Throughout Newberry’s long history, there has been an accumulative list of memorable and locally famous people. Machinist and inventor, Reginald S. “Reg” Ruggles was one of them.", at https://mynewberrynews.com/community/newberrys-machinist-and... :

"Most of the letters ended with a PS containing one of Aunt Agatha's aphorisms, which became famous throughout the county" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Grapes