Carolyn Brady ’19 won Fourth Runner-Up as well as Miss Congeniality in the 2017 Miss Maine USA pageant this past weekend. Twenty-three women between the ages of 18 and 27 competed for the title of Miss Maine USA. Only five contestants, including Brady, made it to the final round.
The competition was Brady’s first pageant. Aware of the many assumptions about beauty pageants, Brady said she wanted to compete while staying true to herself.
“Unfortunately, some girls starve themselves and there are a lot of eating disorders associated with it and there can be a lot of negative images,” she said. “I really wanted to see [if I could] just be myself, and see how far that could get me.”
She also felt that she was able to meet a wide array of women who were familiar with both the benefits of the pageant—such as extensive networks and boosted confidence—and the downsides like eating disorders and low self-esteem.
“I got to meet people on both ends of the spectrum: [People] who benefitted from [the pageantry] and [people who] kind-of felt bent down about themselves. I wanted to try and uplift those [bent-down] people while tugging on the happy energy of the people on the other end,” Brady said.
A newcomer to the pageant scene, Brady competed without having done extensive research or preparation for the pageant categories.
“I went to orientation having done absolutely nothing, other than bought a dress and some shoes,” she said.
Brady excelled despite her lack of preparation and familiarity with the event. She said her primary motivation for competing was to “make new friends in the state of Maine.”
“I liked the idea of not doing any preparations for it and just going and seeing where it led me,” said Brady. “I was like, ‘Let’s just do something totally for fun, something super weird, that most people wouldn’t do.’”
Brady was awarded the title of Miss Congeniality by a popular vote of her fellow contestants, who were asked to pick the contestant who they felt was the “most sister-like” throughout the pageant.
“I don’t think I’ll do [the pageant] again, or at least not in Maine … I got the title of Miss Congeniality and that’s all I was going for,” said Brady. “I feel like that means more than if I’d practiced for eight months on how to answer a specifically scripted answer.”