My NAM Story (forewarning: embarrassing old pictures and lots of emotion)

As a sort of spin-off from my previous Miss America post and the fact that our newly crowned queen is a former National American Miss titleholder, I would like to tell my person NAM story.
I began as an anxious seven year old in 2004. Mom and I essentially had no idea what we were walking into, but after placing in top ten my first year and being in absolute awe of the state and national queens I met, I was hooked.
The next few years, I would repeatedly do my personal introduction as a daily ritual and practice like a good little pageant girl. I moved up to fourth runner up the next year and first runner up the next. Once I moved into the Preteen division as a ten year old, I made top ten as one of the youngest in my division (with my precious blonde boyfriend of the time in the audience--I felt like hot stuff, let me tell you).
                                 

NAM AL 2007 state pageant: the annual formal pose

In 2008, I remember working harder than ever before. I focused on interview more than ever and always strived to make the judges laugh. My dress was from a local consignment shop by my house, and it was the first time I'd ever worn white. Here began my addiction to white dresses: 2008 was my first year to capture a state title, and my crowning moment was the definition of the "ugly cry" face.
                                         

Okay... yeah... we've come a long way since '08...

       As we trekked off to Hollywood for the national pageant, I never knew that I would meet two girls I would call my best friends for years afterward. Of course, being from Alabama, my next door state neighbor of Georgia became my southern accomplice. Victoria and I have befriended each other's friends at home and have remained close for nearly six years along with our cross-country San Diego beauty queen Tierra. As the South California representative, Tierra won the national title of National American Miss Preteen after placing first runner up twice before.

Friends who do pageants together (and are weird together)...

stay together.

These two girls are prime examples of the beauty of pageant friendship. No matter how far they lived, we made Christmas visits whenever possible and are still so close to this day (Tierra and I actually planned to be college roommates if I had gone to NYU, and she is currently taking on New York City as an aspiring, and sure to be successful, journalist).
                                 

NAM AL 2010 state pageant: oh, those lovely opening numbers poses!

     After crowning my successor in 2009, I was back to competing for my state title. I had always wondered why girls who won their state title once would come back again, and some may think it's another attempt to win the national title. That is, of course, very true. A NAM national title is a dream of most girls', but it goes so much farther than that. I kept on because the experience is intoxicating. Being on stage is one of the most indescribable feelings, and I can only begin to describe all that I've learned in the past ten years.
     The next three years, I competed for my state title in the Jr. Teen division, placing in top ten, second runner up, and then fourth runner up. As discouraging as it was to place lower that final year, I did not consider "retiring" because of that discouragement. I was approaching college preparation years and felt that I needed to focus my full attention on my future. And then, after considering myself "retired from pageantry" during that next year, the craziest thing that has ever happened to me occurred at the 2014 state pageant.
     I originally went to help some younger girls who my mom and I had prepared (you would not believe how many girls we have gotten into NAM--we are walking billboards for the organization). The first night we arrived, mom leaned over to me and said, "So... why don't you just compete?" And so, long story short, we entered the next morning and had a friend bring down an old gown, interview dress and shoes, and I was all of a sudden out of retirement and back at it again! I wrote my introduction the night before, went over my walk that was basically muscle memory from so many times before, and on June 9, 2014, I was crowned the National American Miss Alabama Teen 2014.

                                       
    I often wish I could relive that crowning moment on stage because the shock made it all such a blur. I have never felt so confident that God put me here with such strange circumstances I was crowned in. For nine years, I had worked for months in advance for that one summer weekend, and then I won with no stressful preparation and simply having fun and being myself .
    Then, a few weeks later, I received a selfie from Victoria with her new Georgia Teen crown and sash! Victoria and I are now preparing to embark on NAM Nationals take two and cannot wait to reunite with the other third of our friendship when Tierra flies from New York to the national pageant as well. This, my friends, is what fate looks like.
                                                      
    I suppose I could say that a lot happened in my time of retirement in terms of self-discovery, but I know for a fact that National American Miss shaped me into the young woman I am today. I have learned the communication skills that undoubtedly gave me success in my Montevallo interview and now has me a free college education. I am in love with public speaking and take every chance I have to tell others my story and encourage them to take part in the amazing pageant system that changed my life for the better. Most importantly, I believe, National American Miss taught me to love myself. Promoting that All-American girl ideal of a young woman who is true to herself and devoted to changing lives is what set the passion in my heart on fire for this organization.
    Through high school I struggled for years with negative body-image and constantly comparing myself to others, but I now know that being an inspirational person does not require you to be a size two. Serving others does not require you to look like that ideal "pageant girl."
     I have never felt more prepared for a pageant than I am for nationals this Thanksgiving, and that is not just because I have been practicing for months already. It's because I love who I am, and I am proud to promote myself to anyone who will listen because I know my passions and I am dedicated to showing girls that self-love is the best love one can possess. With my platform with the American Heart Association, I have adopted the ideas of living a heart-healthy lifestyle and being good to the body you are blessed with, and that a healthy lifestyle is what leads to a positive body-image.
                               

Sept. 2014 Promoting heart-healthy lifestyle and positive 

body-image with the American Heart Association

Dropping my Nick Saban portrait at Alabama's athletic facility for a signature;

I'll be auctioning it off soon for AHA!

    I may be a size 8, but I am a proud size 8. And through the past ten years of everlasting friendship, lifelong communication skills, and reassuring self-confidence, I am so honored to be able to represent a system that made me who I am today.

NAM: changing lives and creating miss americas

To the number of people who are talking down on the newly crowned Miss America, Kira Kazantsev, for her talent with the "cup song," I just want to talk about a few points of pageantry.
I, too, was rather shocked at a Miss America contestant performing a talent that incorporated such a silly move from the much-loved film Pitch Perfect. Being from Alabama, I was pulling for Caitlin Brunell, but I soon heard that New York and Virginia, the top two contestants, were formerly a part of the National American Miss system that I am so proud to be a part of now. It is indescribably inspirational to see women exceed in the world's most prestigious pageant system after growing in the system I call home today.
For those of you thinking negatively of Kira for her quirky choice of talent, remember what pageantry is about. Remember how beautiful her voice was despite her modernized addition. The talent portion of competition is only 20% of each contestant's overall score, and the girl has a phenomenal voice. That is a talent just as any other.
But more than that, I saw the speaking skill and brains in Kira in her onstage question. Even after competing in pageants for over fourteen years now, I sat and thought, I would have had no idea how to answer a question about how women in the Senate should stand tall over men and make changes that matter to women. And her answer blew me away! She not only had an educated and sincere answer, but she spoke with poise and calmness even in knowing that she only had twenty seconds to give the perfect answer.
A pageant interview is what takes the crown, and seeing only a fraction of her brains and communication skills, I can only imagine how quickly she captured the judges' hearts in a ten-minute interview. I know first hand of the pressure in an interview room and knowing in the back of your mind that you have this small time slot to convince a few strangers that you are the best potential titleholder. You have to be smart and quick-witted and elegant in your speech, and that is what pageantry is all about to me. It is being a woman who can speak and connect with people on a level that allows them to see her greatness, even if there are only a couple of minutes to do so.
National American Miss, I have no doubt, grew Kira into a woman perfectly suitable to represent our country with the Miss America crown, because I know what I have learned from it on my own terms. NAM girls are world-chagners who inspire people every single day. They are the all-American girls who are unique and special, and they are dedicated to serving the world and its people. I am honored to be a part of such an organization, and Kira has only created more motivation and given stronger inspiration to NAM girls and other young women to go out and chase their dreams.

the arrogantly educated atheist

Most, if not all, of my posts about my college experience so far have been nothing but positive, and it is my sincere desire to keep it that way. As I further my experience as a writer, however, there are certain bothers that I experience and feel compelled to share with the world. Because, obviously, writers expect the entirely of the world to care what they have to rant about.
As I wrote in my former post, college has distilled in me an intense enthusiasm for learning. I could complain about my hours of homework and how I would rather watch Netflix in my pajamas than read a four hundred page poem in which I "don't really have to know what is going on, but should simply absorb the beauty of the language" (those liberal arts writing electives are pretty deep, eh?). But I am truly enjoying myself. And I actually use more of my current leisure time to read books of my own choosing than ever before.
This week I experienced something new that has really pulled at me on the inside. It's something I should have expected at a liberal arts school, and likely something I should overlook in the matter of being a good student and learning what I am taught on my own terms.
Religion is not taught as a belief system, but as a historical story nothing unlike war and socialization. A culture's worshiping of God is portrayed as a simple-minded thought in humanity, and not as what has created history in and of itself. Maybe it's just me and the fact that when I am taught about faith, I am taught in a church and learn the stories and beliefs that, in my mind, are true and worthy of living by. Religion to me is not a minute aspect of life, and as it has been for any religious peoples of the earth, it is something that consumes one's lifestyle because that is what we live for and is the reason we are here in the first place.
I am looked down upon by many for being a Christian and expressing my Christian views in the things I'm learning. It seems like to not believe is considered more educated because you have figured out how the universe and life was created scientifically, and that it is silly and childish to think that any majestic phenomenon of this "higher power" could have actually happened. As Christians, we indirectly incorporate Godly beliefs into everyday knowledge just as an atheist would incorporate his "realistic and practical" views into everything he experiences. But how is it fair that believing in Christ and a heavenly afterlife makes me less educated than you? How is it deemed respectable for you to think I'm ignorant just because you can study religion in a completely objectified manner and I cannot because I believe in a specific one? The Bible is history, and so is the Torah and philosophical books of nearly every other belief system.
We are looked down upon for believing in what they see as a magical supreme being, but how are they to know that it is anything short of real?

on learning and absorbing and scholarly mindsets

Yes, I know I'm a freshman.  Yes, I know, not only am I a freshman, I am only a two-week-old freshman. And yes, I know I'm still absolutely ignorant about most things college-related.
But if there is one thing I have realized in the past two weeks here at the University of Montevallo, it is that learning is one of the most fantastic experiences I have ever come across. College, to me, is not simply a place to earn a sheet of paper that will give me a one-up on someone applying for a job with only a high school diploma. It is not a place to meet my future husband (even if it happens coincidentally) and get my MRS degree (which will not happen under any circumstances).
College is a place of exposure. It is a campus of not only beautifully sculpted buildings, but of professors who are experts of their practice and want to extend their knowledge and experiences to us students. My history teacher, Dr. Barone, talks a lot about becoming a scholar. He tells about the process of reading book after book and listening to lecture after lecture and putting together information in one's mind on its own terms to connect all of the information.
I can't even describe the excitement of having that sense of enlightenment when you know exactly what a professor is talking about and you can raise your hand in mention of something you read earlier that connects in some odd way to the current subject. Don't get me wrong, raising my hand for the first time made me feel more than simply exposed. My voice faltered a few times in my fifty-person sociology class while mentioning a reading about education reform. But the praise I received from my professor made up for any naked feeling I previously experienced (not to mention it was the professor I was a little terrified of on the first day).
My mind wandered a bit today in Dr. Barone's History of World Civilizations class, and I started thinking about my future education. What am I going to major in? Am I going to continue onto graduate school after my four years at Montevallo? And if I do, where will I go? Will I go to a fashion school to study what will pertain to my future career? Or will I learn to love this core education program and idea of becoming a scholar so much that I apply to an Ivy League grad school and continue what I'm enjoying so much at this moment? Will I actually fulfill my high school dream of Columbia University and study philosophy or journalism or media or public relations?

I have had this plan for the past couple of years to finish my undergrad and immediately land a job at a top fashion publication to begin working my way up to editor. I imagined myself delving into the fashion and journalism courses and getting the core studies out of the way as soon as I could to begin learning about what I will do for the rest of my life. I suppose that was before I realized my love for learning. I can't express to you guys how refreshing it is to know that I have all the time in the world to learn more and more and never stop learning! To know that I can take any path in life that I desire and make success out of it because I am dedicated and enthusiastic and passionate about living. If I can inspire any of you young people to realize anything in your coming years, I can only hope that it will be to dedicate yourself to learning in college. I know how insignificant it seems to learn the material in high school that you will forget the week after the test, but the things you learn in college, the brilliance of the professors, the lessons they teach you through their material, allow it to sink into your mind and resonate. Learn from the mistakes and successes that are pictured in history. People watch and use the theories you are taught in sociology to figure different humans out. Apply the environmental conservation ideas to your personal life and then travel the entire world to experience lives different from your own. Take the weird elective class that may not apply to your major but seems deeply fascinating because that is the class that will change your life. Take hard classes. Challenge your minds, I beg of you, because that is what will inspire you to want to change your life and other peoples' lives and the entire world and what could possibly change your entire mindset on what you want to do forever.
Please know that it is okay to not have your life figured out at 20 years old. This is not the time to have your life planned out; it is the time to absorb the knowledge that you can to make those life-altering decisions before you are forced to make them.

I tell you here and now that there is nothing more intimidating than being surrounded by a bunch of people who are ten times smarter than you. But there is nothing like the motivation to someday grow to outdo them.