The Journey of Miss Oakland County: March 2011

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Celebrity Reading Day!!

What an honor to be a Celebrity guest reader on Wednesday, March 9th!! The biggest challenge I have had to overcome as a young student in early elementary school was learning how to read. While the other students were out at recess I was getting extra help. When my friends went away to summer camps I was working all summer with tutors, reading specialists, in special reading groups, and worked with anyone who would help me to read successfully. Years later this hard work would pay off as I won the President's Education Achievement Award for my efforts and would go on to recieve awards for reading and comprehension on my MEAP exams. I am happy to report that while I now read copious amounts of materials for my university classes, I am a lifetime reader and always make time to read for the sheer joy of it! :) I am extremely humbled by the efforts of so many people who took the time needed to assist me in learning how to read. I consider reading a gift and I sincerely hope that no child is left behind because they cannot read.

March is Reading month!! Visiting and reading at Springfield Plains Elementary School in my hometown of Clarkston!!

Telling these fifth grade students a little bit about myself and my platform 'Best Bones Forever!!'

Reading 'Rotten Teeth'. . . I figured that would be a good book since teeth are bones!! I had to tie in my platform somehow!! ;)

Mrs Lacy and her fantastic 5th grade students!! :)

Being goofy!!!

Mrs. Whaley and her husband drove Morgan Stocker and me in the Royal Oak Thanksgiving Holiday parade! She's a 2nd grader teacher and she's excited for me to read to her class in the near future!!

All of these students from another class saw me in the library on my way out so the teacher called me over to say hi and introduce myself! This crown never fails to attract attention!! :)

Miss Michigan Orientation/Dinner!!!

Mr McNeil was so sweet and gave all of the titleholders a ton of information about competition from a judges perspective!!

Before dinner!

Aww I love Doug!! He's the best!! I love this picture!! :)

Our fantastic Miss Michigan Katie and me!

Our wonderful Miss Michigan director, Shelley!! This program wouldn't be the same without her!!

Right before I was about to leave to head home they played the "Cupid Shuffle!" I couldn't miss that...hence the jacket and jeans!!

During the Miss Michigan orientation all of the Miss titleholders handed in their resume, headshot, talent music, and sponsor ads for the program book. As most of you know this is my first time to compete for Miss Michigan and this was a new and interesting experience!!

For those of you who attended, most of you know that my mom became ill in the beginning half of the orientation. While we don't really know what caused my mom's illness, she is healthy and doing extremely well! Thank you to all that asked about her, I really appreciated it. Besides that incident, it was exciting to see our beautiful opening number dresses and hear about all of the songs that will be played during each part of competition, I must say we have great music this year!!!

Our lovely Miss Michigan and Miss Michigan's Outstanding Teen both spoke eloquently about competition and getting our head in the right mind set, even though it is much easier said then done!! We also had a wonderful speaker, Mr. McNeil, who had a wealth of information and I really did learn alot!!! While I have been with the Miss America Organization since I was 13 years old it was great to hear tidbits from a judges perspective, especially one who has been so successful with choosing winners across the country 95% of the time!!

When it came time to choose our contestant numbers, I was shocked to learn that I had tied for second place with 3 1/2 pages of sponsor ads. The number 18 has been with me all of my life since I was born on the 18th of November. If nothing else, I cannot forget it!! :)

I want to give a personal thank you to all of the Miss Michigan staff members that helped my mother and me during her time of need. It really proved to us once again how special this system is and how we really are like family members. We truly felt the love and prayers everyone was sending our way and I want to say a special thank you to my MOC family who stuck with me while my mom was in the hospital. It was upsetting for me and it really helped to have great friends around me in a nerve wracking situation. Also a big thank you to my fantastic director Franny. She went to the hospital with my mom because my mom wanted me to stay at orientation since it was my first time ever being there and she wanted for me to learn as much as I could. It would have upset mom more if I hadn't stayed. Franny also kept me updated through numerous texts on how she was doing which helped ease my mind. My second mom, Patty Stocker, stayed with me and made sure I was okay! She took great care of me!! :)

I also must say that we have some outstanding girls competing for Miss Michigan this year! I can honestly say that all of these girls are so sweet and supportive of one another!! I can't wait to compete at Miss Michigan, but hopefully the next few months won't fly by too quickly! ; )

Miss Lighthouse Coast pageant!!!

Friday, March 4th was an exciting evening as one more girl would be crowned the new Miss Lighthouse Coast and join the rest of us to compete at Miss Michigan in June. Angela Venditti came out on top of the competition to do just that! Angela crowned me on July 10th, 2010 as the new Miss Oakland County!

Love this girl!! My teen queen Miss Oakland County's Outstanding Teen Morgan Stocker!

The beautiful Learman sisters and the fantastic Doug King!!

Each contestant was escorted onto the stage before the crowning! I must say it was great to escort the soon to be winner and an Oakland County sister!!! Of course Angela had the two tall girls walk her on the floor haha!! The tall and short of it!! :)

Brooke Rowland our wonderful Miss Michigan's Outstanding Teen!!

Lisa Dexter, Brenna O'Malley, and me

All of the titleholders (teen & miss)!!

All of the Miss titleholders!

The newly crowned Miss Lighthouse Coast ~ Angela Venditti

Walk for Warmth!!

On Sunday, February 27th, my wonderful, talented, funny, and very sweet, teen queen Morgan Stocker and I participated in the Walk For Warmth at the Auburn Hills Palace!! What a great event to be able to donate/raise money to help others for such a worthy cause and get exercise while walking through the palace!! The money is raised to help those who are financially struggling to pay their heating bills and make sure they can heat their home for the winter months. With our struggling economy, here in this bitterly cold Michigan winter, the need has been great this year and I feel humbled to be able to help these folks out in some small way.

The place was packed and had such an excellent turnout for such a frigid weather day!! There were several different booths set up for advertisiments and there were also a few featured bands along the walk to keep us entertained!! Morgan and I had a great afternoon catching up with one another about her school, her dancing, my work, college, and our pageant preparation! Morgan is such a fun, free spirited, girl and she never fails to make me laugh!! I feel incredibly blessed to have her for my first teen queen sister!!

My teen Morgan and me with the mascot! Who doesn't love penguins???!!

The 2011 Walk For Warmth poster!

Saginaw Spirit Hockey Game!!

Saturday, February 26th was the setting for a very fun evening as many of us titleholders made our way to Saginaw to cheer on the Saginaw Spirit Hockey team!! Our family is a HUGE fan of hockey as my older brother, Seth, played hockey for years and I spent much of my childhood at his hockey practices and games!

A huge shout-out to Sydney Learman for organizing this event! We were introduced on center ice and had two autograph sessions to sign and distribute our headshots ~ one before the game and one after the first period!! We also threw out tee-shirts to the crowd!!

Unfortunately, our family left after the first period as there was a major snow storm and I was so glad my dad was the driver! He had two hands on the wheel the entire time!! Too many spin outs on the side of the road to even count and an inch of ice under that snow.

When we left, the game was a tied score of 0-0 and I never did find out how it ended!!

Thank you again, Sydney, and best wishes to the Saginaw Spirit as they finish out the remainder of their season! Keep your stick on the ice!! :)

This little girl was SOOO cute!! She ran up to me, dragging her mom behind her and said hi! Her mom told me they were really going to get food but she had to stop and see me! After I gave her an autograph she ran off to get some food!!

I met this great guy, Steven, at the Winter Special Olympics back in 2008!! He is going to be back for the Summer games this year too and I can't wait to see him again!! It was a great reunion for us!

Anyone who is a friend of my boss, Mickey Mouse, is a friend of mine!! Of course I told him I worked at Disney World!! The gorgeous Liza Gill joined us for this photo!:)

The Saginaw Spirit mascot!! :)

The Three Muskateers: Linaya Haas, Mekisha Alcock, and myself !!

The amazing Miss Michigan, Katie LaRoche, was able to join us and enjoy the festivities too!! :)

The very first Miss Lady of the Lakes pageant!!!!

Saturday, February 19th was a very exciting day as several beautiful contestants tried to capture the first ever Miss Lady of the Lakes title!! That honor went to my dear friend Cameron Learman!! I was very happy to be able to crown her as we have known one another for years and she makes me laugh like no other!! She will be joining 31 other girls as we compete for the job of Miss Michigan on Saturday, June 18th!! Congratulations Cameron!

I appreciated *warming-up* the judges with my interview before each contestant had their turn and found it as exhilerating as ever! Interview is definitely one of my favorite categories of competition!! During the pageant I was asked to read the questions to each girl during their on-stage question and even had the opportunity to sing my winning talent song 'Orange Colored Sky' later in the program!!

Jeannette Greco-Pawlowski did an excellent job as the brand new first year Director and I wish her much continued success in future years! Thank you, Jeannette, for letting me share this very special night with you and your staff!! It was awesome!! :)