My month of October!

My first official duty as Miss Tarrant County was to help at the Miss Keller/Miss Carrollton pageant.  I was so fortunate to be able to perform a few fun songs and share about my platform as I cheered on my friends and welcomed Kaylee Killingsworth (Miss Keller), Brittney Bennett (Miss Carrollton), and Jacy Etter (Miss Carrollton’s Outstanding Teen) into our MFWSO family.  Considering they are all young ladies I highly respect and have been fortunate to get close to prior to our reigning together, I was beyond thrilled.  I also was able to cheer a few of my closest pageant friends at the same time.  Here I am with the beautiful Megan Clark, who eventually went on to win Miss Plano!

I also had the opportunity to judge my first pageant (Great Peanut Butter Festival Pageant)!  Ken Prachtar, a good friend, actually recommended me to judge the Great Peanut Butter Festival pageant.  This was such a well-run and upbeat pageant with boys and girls ranging from infants to my age.  I loved seeing the little girls who were genuinely enjoying themselves on the stage!

This month I gave up my title as Miss Northeast Texas at the Miss Arlington/Miss Kaufman County pageant and was very blessed to be co-emcee with one of my closest and best friends Meghan Miller (yes, the very first Miss America’s Outstanding Teen).  I’ll be honest, we were pretty cheesy at this pageant as we divulged on our love and commitment for this organization and as we silently cheered on some of our other great friends, including our other best friend, Michelle Hanson, who happened to be crowned Miss Arlington that night.  Congrats to Michelle and the beautiful Emily Falkenberg (Miss Kaufman County)!!

Later that week, I was able to attend the Texas State Fair for the first time ever!! The incredible Bruce Wallace invited Anna Combrink and me and was nice enough to give me a historical tour, which included the walk to the Vietnam memorial.  I had an absolute blast meeting all the children and riding in the parade.  I even saw a college friend of mine as I rode on the parade!

Brittney, Rachel, Ivana, and I had the privilege to attend the DIFFA event - Burgundy & Burgers.  I am an avid supporter of DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS) and am so thankful to Miss Bobbie Scott for involving me in so many of their events.

I loved being part of the Tarrant County Buddy Walk.  This event promoted awareness for children with down syndrome.  Here is a picture of me with my beautiful little buddy Brooke Garbe.  Her mother, Mrs. Lisa Garbe, is not only part of the Cinderella family that I was once a part of but was also one of my sorority advisors in college!  That means this little angel is an Alpha Chi Omega legacy (and a total sweet one too)!

SPONSOR SHOUT OUT! – I got to go in for my very first appointment with Lash Lounge in Fort Worth to get my new eyelash extensions!! Thank you so much Lash Lounge!!

Round table! Though I don’t have pictures from this event, I loved getting together with my entire MFWSO family as well as our board members for training and mock interviews.  Anytime we get together is a blast!

After the training, I actually met up with my beautiful pageant sisters Meghan and Michelle as well as Bruce Wallace to play around at the Texas State Fair.  What a great time we had together!

ClubCorp Charity Classic benefiting Mothers Against Bullying – I cannot express how humbled I was to be asked to attend the ClubCorp Charity Classic benefiting Mothers Against Bullying.  I had one of my pageant heroes (Faith Bates) as my traveling companion.  At the end of the night, I received a thank you note from the man who requested an appearance from the Miss Texas Organization asking if I would be willing to attend another event in the future.  The fact that he requested me again really humbled me and made me feel like I had done my job!

Spoke at Natalie’s School – The fourth strand of the “wolf pack” (the name we call our best friends) is Natalie Baker, who also happens to be a member of my MFWSO board and last year’s 2^nd runner up at Miss Texas as Miss Fort Worth.  She happens to be a middle school teacher so I took the day off and came and spoke to her classes to do my school program “Owning You”.   Her critiques were beyond helpful as this was the first time I had done my program after revamping my points.  I can’t wait to do more! (P.S. In between two of her classes she asked me to sing at her wedding!  I could barely hold back the tears!)