A majority of modern day society has a specific mindset about what the expectations of a pageant is supposed to have. What they don't know is that not all pageants require you to strut half naked across the stage in a bikini or wear a boat load of makeup with your hair a foot high! It feels like forever ago now that pageantry was in my families life. But I will never forget the many life lessons that have stuck with me ever since. My older sister was the first of both of us in our family to participate in the National American Miss pageants, she did them for four years and I did them for two. We successfully managed to fulfill our pageant days with the help of our manager, our amazing grandma! I will never be able to thank her enough for working so hard to make sure we worked hard.

Almost a whole year in advance we started preparing for the pageant weekend. The first step began with going around to family and friends to help sponsor me, I would also go around to small businesses in my area to help sponsor me and also get an ad in the big book that everyone receives at the end of the pageant weekend. The next step was to pick out the different sections that I wanted to compete in. There is always (of course) a talent section, the first pageant that I participated in I played the feather song that plays at the beginning of Forrest Gump on my Bass Clarinet. Everyone was required to participate in the interview process.

The interview process was a huge room filled with about ten "interviewers" asking us about our life, what our favorite joke was, what our favorite food was. My favorite question that I was asked was "Why did you choose the outfit you are wearing? How did you feel about this outfit when you bought it? And if you had to go back, would you choose this outfit again?" I don't know why these questions stuck with me for all of these years but every time I go shopping, it makes me think about my interview. Many of the lessons I learned from my pageant years I find helping me almost every day. One of the main reasons I love to write so much is specifically based around when I wrote speeches for the spokesmodel section of the pageant weekend.

My absolute favorite part of the weekend was when I could wear my beautiful pageant dress. The judges of the pageant judged you on whether or not your dress and makeup were both age appropriate. Not too flashy like everyone expects pageants to be. Most of the girls only used a little bit of lip gloss for their looks! Even though dressing up was my favorite part of the pageant weekend, I learned so many great life skills that I can thank my pageants (and my grandma of course) for!