Pageant Update

Jayde Ogle was after a scholarship. And not only did she win a scholarship, she also won a pageant.

The Liberty North High School senior beat out about 50 others for the 2012 Miss Missouri Teen USA title in St. Charles in November 2011. She will go on to compete in the Miss Teen USA competition in the Bahamas in August. The contests are part of the Miss USA and Miss Universe program.

The pageant was Ogle’s first.

“I would not classify myself as the pageant type. I was so shocked when I won,” Ogle said.

With the win, she received more than $100,000 in prizes, including a more than $55,000 scholarship to Lindenwood University in St. Charles.

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The third time was the charm for Louisville native Amanda
Mertz. On Sunday night, the 25-year-old blond beauty was crowned Miss Kentucky USA 2012 at Western Kentucky University’s Van Meter Hall in Bowling Green.

In 2010, Mertz was the fourth runner-up for the title, and last year she was the second runner-up. “This year, finally, after climbing two spots every year, I made it to the top,” Mertz said, laughing.

The competition featured more than 35 young women from across the state who were judged in swimsuit and evening gown portions, as well as interviews.

Mertz, a graduate of Assumption High School and Galen College of Nursing, is no stranger to the spotlight. The registered nurse, who calls St. Matthews home, was featured on the November cover of Maxim magazine’s “Salute to the Military” special issue.

“When the moment came, I felt like I was dreaming,” Mertz said about winning the title. One of the first things she did was “walk backstage and grab two pieces of pizza … and a cupcake.”

Mertz will represent Kentucky in the Miss USA Pageant in June, live on NBC.

Congratulations to Wagner College alumna Johanna Sambucini ’09, who was crowned Miss New York USA 2012 on Jan. 15 at the Purchase College Performing Arts Center. She will represent New York in the Miss USA 2012 pageant.

Sambucini graduated cum laude with a B.S. in business administration with a marketing concentration and a minor in psychology. She made Dean’s List every semester and was a member of the Omicron Delta Kappa national leadership honor society. As a Wagner College student, Sambucini belonged to the Marketing Club, Habitat for Humanity and the Accounting Business Society. She appeared in the 2008-09 Wagner College Fashion Show.

NORCROSS — There were bright lights, screaming spectators and thousands of strangers watching her. The night of Nov. 19 changed Jasmyn Wilkins’ life forever.

“I prepared to win, but in my mind, I wasn’t mentally thinking I’m going to win this,” she said of winning the title of Miss Georgia USA 2012.

The former Wesleyan student was surprised with the outcome because this was her first pageant — ever.

Wilkins, 21, decided to enter for the Miss Georgia USA pageant with a little persuasion from her friends and the need to find her niche in life. She never fit in as an athlete in her famous basketball family (her dad Gerald, uncle Dominique and brother Damien all played in the NBA), so she looked for another avenue.

“I didn’t feel like the pageant type. I felt tall, awkward and gawky,” she said. “I was in the marching band in my high school and I was really into science, so I didn’t feel like I fit the ‘queen’ persona. I started thinking about it and realized I didn’t have my own niche that I felt like I was falling into, so I thought if I did a beauty pageant, it would open more doors for me discover what I wanted to do.”

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UC Irvine students are busy people. Some are dancers, some are involved with research, some are pursuing their dreams of writing novels one day. Natalie Pack, a third-year biological sciences major and the 2012 winner of the Miss California USA pageant, is another one of these busy students, in the process of realizing her hopes of attending medical school after her time at UCI.

“I wake up every day, usually around six. Then I go to work at Hoag Hospital, I have an internship there for my clinical experience. I’m there until about 11 a.m., then I’ll go to LA for a casting and then come back for class at 2 o’clock. Go to class ‘till four, do research until about six, then I go to an interview or an appearance or whatever I have scheduled for that day. Then homework for the rest of the day,” Pack said. For her, this is just another Thursday in her life.

Oh yeah — she’s on the Dean’s Honor List too and signed to LA Models.

“Honestly, I wasn’t very prepared [for the pageant]. My boyfriend’s mom had judged pageants before, so I got some advice from her. I didn’t have any advice until about two weeks before, though. I didn’t even get my dress until three days before, my shoes until hours before. I did a lot of Googling,” said Pack with a bit of a laugh.

In the pageant, Natalie Pack represented Hoag Hospital since she had no prior experience.

“Other girls had won Miss Malibu and Miss Orange County, for example. I had to pick somewhere, and I wanted to represent somewhere that meant a lot to me, and Hoag is such an amazing hospital so I wanted to do that,” Pack explained.

“I still don’t really know much about what I’m supposed to be doing. I know it’s going to be a lot of charity work, a lot of appearances, but a lot of fun too,” she added.

“I go to Miss USA in June. It’s going to be tough […] I’ve heard things like, ‘This contestant is going to be so pretty’ and it’s kind of scary, I’m nervous about it. I’m already freaking out. But I know I’m getting the tools I need to be competitive, too. I have a personal trainer and a nutritionist that are helping me be the best I can be for this. But just going there is going to be a dream come true,” she said.

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Alexa Jones, 18, of Ramona was crowned Miss California Teen USA 2012 at a pageant in Indian Wells on Sunday.

Jones competed in the pageant as Miss Orange County USA and made it to the top among approximately 100 contestants. Her next step is to represent California at the Miss Teen USA 2012 pageant, usually held during the summer in the Bahamas.

Jones, a 2011 Ramona High School graduate, attends California State University, San Marcos. A 2011 recipient of the Ramona Sentinel scholarship, she graduated early from high school and entered college at age 17 as a communications major with plans to go into broadcasting.

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Allie LaForce / Fox 8 News sports reporter, 23

Decked out in a long-sleeved Ohio University T-shirt, Allie LaForce preps for a quick after-work run. She ties her long, blonde hair back into a ponytail and stretches in front of her Lakewood home before taking off on her regular route down Madison Avenue.

Just 30 minutes ago, LaForce was on TV weighing in on another controversy involving Browns running back Peyton Hillis. This time, he failed to show at an October fundraiser for the Cleveland Boys & Girls Club. You can tell she’s still miffed about the Hillis snafu. “I don’t understand how you can string together four weeks of a new problem each week and how you miss scheduled events when you have two agents,” she says.

The opinionated 23-year-old already has a vast knowledge of sports and its athletes on and off the field. As a senior at Ohio University studying broadcast journalism, she started hosting Bobcat Blitz, the OU football coach’s show that aired on WOUB, the Athens-based NPR/PBS affiliate.

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The crowd at Allen Fieldhouse got the royal treatment Saturday as the reigning Miss Kansas USA, Gentry Linn Miller, a 2010 University of Kansas graduate, and the Miss Kansas USA, Katie Taylor, a senior at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Overland Park, paid a visit. The two stopped by to watch the men’s basketball game, greet fans and discuss life as pageant participants.

How do you prepare for a pageant?

Gentry Linn Miller: I love the limelight and being on stage, so that part for me isn’t stressful. But definitely the preparation up until the show is probably the hardest part.

Katie Taylor: I started working out six months prior and just kept working out and getting stricter and stricter with what I ate.

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Competitive roller skater. Playboy centerfold. Entrepreneur. Old flame of punk rockers and boxing royalty. That chick from Entourage with the thing for bunny suits. Shanna Moakler is all of this and more, but her fame is rooted in her reign as Miss USA 1995. The 36-year-old actress and mother of three is now an executive in the pageant world, helping California win Miss USA last year and end the state’s almost two-decade dry spell. Now creative director for Miss Nevada USA, she and her “girls” are up against a winless record for the national crown. With a little butt glue and lots of heart, Moakler says it’s a lock.

You got into pageants through modeling and won Miss Rhode Island Teen USA at 16. As stepping-stones go, how does the Miss USA system differ from Miss America?

Miss America is a scholarship pageant, and they actually define themselves as a talent pageant. … Miss USA broke away from Miss America back in the ’50s to specifically just be a beauty pageant. The criteria that we go off of are beauty of the face and figure, confidence, poise and personality. … The Miss USA girls are a little more entertainment based, girls who want to be hosts or models or actresses or motivational speakers. … So it really depends on who you are as a young woman and what your personal goals are.

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