Game On!

Well, the time has finally come! For those who have not picked up on it from the clues I dropped this past week or if you aren’t one of the very limited few folks who have known…

~Insert drumroll sound~

I am coming out of pageant retirement and will be back on stage competing at the Miss Alaska USA Pageant on March 19th!

I am so excited to be getting back into this world as a contestant, though I have never truly left because I have a strong DC USA sisterhood and have a deep love and appreciation for the pageant world!

If you read my blog on my goals and vision for this year, I mentioned that at some point this year, I knew I wanted to get back into this. At the time I wrote that though, I was still going back and forth if it would be this year's pageant or not.

It’s been about 7 years since I was active in the pageant world, it feels like a whole other lifetime ago. In those 7 years, I have transitioned from a teenager to a young woman which changes the division in pageants I will now compete in but I have also grown and learned so much about the world and more importantly myself. I am thankful for the 7 year retirement because it allowed me to develop and gave me so much that I hope to take on the Miss Alaska USA stage.

(If you are new to the pageant world here is a little video explaining Miss USA vs Miss America and shares a little bit more on what each entails!)

As a teenager I had the wonderful opportunity to be Miss District of Columbia Teen USA and that was an incredible year! I was able to work with local organizations, meet the most amazing people and was able to be in a community with like minded women who are passionate about creating positive change in our world.

So why this year? With the move to Alaska, one of the main things I am working on is building my community here! One of the things the pageant did for me was that I had the opportunity to meet a plethora of women who I was able to instantly become friends with! I hope that through competing this year I can start to do the same in my new home!

There also is an age limit to competing in this pageant and I knew I would always come back to compete but realized that each year I am getting closer and closer to the cut off, so part of me competing this year is to just get back into the game so that I don’t lose out on time!

I have been super nervous about sharing this news but after being in a parade this past weekend, wearing my local title sash and there was no hiding it anymore! I have been nervous about sharing this because I know I am just jumping back in and have not been preparing or training as long as I had in the past. There can be lots of unsolicited opinions, judgment, and commentary when you compete in a pageant and I wanted to make sure going into my first year back, I was going in with a strong, well equipped mindset and that I was only making choices that felt authentic to me.

So whats next?! I will be training hard for March 19th where I will get to walk the Miss Alaska USA stage as Miss Midtown USA! I am so excited to have the opportunity to share and speak more on my platform of maternal health and hope that if I become the next Miss Alaska USA I can use the title to share how incredible this state and its people are, specifically elevating the voices of the Black and Native communities here!

For those who are local, tickets are on sale! You can purchase those here.

For those who are far away, I don’t know if this will be live streamed yet, but as soon as I know, I will let you know!

I am so thankful to you all for all the support you have shown already in this newish endeavor and I hope that I can make you all proud by representing the state at Miss USA!

In the words of my coach and one of my favorite humans, “GAME ON!”