Found her at last! She is 17-year-old Kathleen Mead from Rossmoor, Orange County, California, and she was chosen as queen of the 1968 International Auto Show held at the Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles.
The caption to the newspaper photograph says "This year, as a tribute to the school driver education program, the queen and her court were chosen from girls who had completed their driver training instruction".
She is sitting in a Link driving simulator, made in Binghamton, NY, in conjunction with the Allstate Insurance Company, which produced the films that provided the simulated road conditions. At least two companies made machines like this, but I'm not sure they caught on in a big way, as they were quite expensive. Around the time of this picture, a 12-station Link simulator cost over $30,000.
The Link company was better known for making flight simulators, and was founded in Binghamton by Edwin A. Link, who patented the first ground-based flight trainer in 1929. By the end of WW2 it is estimated that over half a million Allied airmen had trained in Link "Blue Box" simulators before entering the air war over Europe and the Pacific. The company name still exists as the Link Simulation & Training Division of L-3 Communications, which claims to be the world leader in military flight simulation.
Here's the uncropped photo.
