How my journey began

Welcome to my blog! I am so excited to publish my very first blog post.  In it you will find out how I came to the decision to compete for Mrs. Oklahoma.

To begin, let me tell you a little about my history in the beauty industry. It all began when I was 16 years old. I took a series of modeling courses from a former fashion model, who lived in a neighboring town in Idaho. However, it never went any further than the completion of the courses and putting together a small portfolio.

Four years later, I dove into marriage and family life. At that point, the fashion industry was pushed to the back of my mind.

Down the road a few years, a patient at the dental office where I worked mentioned that she wanted to compete for Mrs. Oklahoma and asked if I would be interested as well. At that point in my life, I did not know the Mrs. Oklahoma competition even existed, but it certainly sounded interesting! I googled the pageant and looked at the website. I considered competing, but didn’t feel like it was the right thing for me at the time.

Shortly thereafter, I found out I was pregnant with my 3^rd child and made the decision to become a full-time mom. Three years later, our 4^th and final child was born. I was happily living the mommy life, and trying to survive all that mommy-hood entails!

After moving to Edmond four years ago, I found out that a member of my church congregation, Heather Rouba, was the current Mrs. Oklahoma!

That certainly piqued my interest and I thought about contacting her about competing and asking for her help in doing so. But once again, the timing just did not feel right and I decided not to contact her.

Things started to get rolling again in the modeling direction when I was working one night at a catering event. I was contacted by the owner of Distinctly Oklahoma Magazine, who was in attendance, to see if I would be interested in being the model for the fashion section of their upcoming month’s magazine. It sounded like a lot of fun, so I accepted the offer. Over the next few months I did a few other shoots with them, including a mother/daughter shoot with my daughter, Madison, for the Mother’s Day issue.

Very soon after I had started working with Distinctly Oklahoma, my daughter told me about the Anthony David Modeling Agency, which is co-owned by former Mrs. Oklahoma, Heather Rouba, and hair guru, Anthony David. After that, Heather’s and my path started to cross in many different aspects and we naturally became friends. By this point, Heather had given up her Mrs. Oklahoma title, and was training pageant contestants in various pageants. I offered to help with her training, and soon I was frequently helping her girls with mock interviews. I also volunteered my husband, J.B., to help with the interviews so that he and I both might be able to learn more about what pageants, and Mrs. Oklahoma in particular, were about in the event I decided to compete. I eventually became a volunteer, along with my daughter, at the Mrs. Oklahoma 2011 pageant this last year, which increased my knowledge even more about how the actual pageant is run.  In my mind, I told myself that if my new friend, Megan Murray, won the competition, then I would commit to competing for the 2012 crown. And guess what? She WON!!!

So that very night, at the after party, I told Megan and Heather that I would be competing the following year for MRS. OKLAHOMA!  And that – my dear friends – is how my journey to Mrs. Oklahoma America 2012 began!