Saturday, March 19, 2011

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! ; )

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