Katie will always hold a special place in our Miss Heart hearts! Here is an insight that she shared with us...Katie will be our special guest for Miss Heart of Michigan on February 12. Join us!
My performance on 1/11/11 for the preliminary portion of the competition for the title of Miss America happened to fall on National Human Trafficking Awareness day, an awesome coincidence. You can watch it through this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgrnA0SlOYo&NR=1
Lying on the floor inside the dance studio of my youth, I am mentally and physically exhausted. Memories from within the walls merge with challenges of the present as I struggle to catch my breath. My mind races as interview prep spins through my head. Should Julian Assange be tried for treason? Should we allow a mosque to be built on ground zero? What is the greatest challenge facing our nation’s youth? Then my focus shifts. Ryan’s corrections of my dance routine surface. “Point your toes. Change your focus. Softer there. Stronger there. That arm is ugly; we need to fix it.”
“Okay, enough thinking,” I tell myself. “Get up and do it one more time… you need to run through your dance one more time…” I’m almost too tired to peel my body off the floor, but I get up. I do it once more.
Looking back, I suppose preparing for the 10 days I spent in Las Vegas competing for the title of Miss America was a lot of work, but it hardly felt like it at the time. Truth be told, that was probably because I was enjoying it in the deepest part of my being. I had been given an excuse to dance, to study world issues, and to speak to organization after organization on a topic I am passionate about: the imminence of compassion and our ability as individuals to make this world a better place, whether they choose to focus on human trafficking or another issue close to their heart.
I could never have imagined that I would get the opportunity to use all of the years spent in my little studio in Bay City—Perry Woodard School of Dance—as a powerful tool in sharing an important message of reality coupled with hope. The piece I performed on the Miss America stage this January was an artistic expression of my journey coming to understand the injustice taking place in our world. Every single movement in the routine has a story, a name, and a face, and each time I am given the opportunity to perform it, I am hardly in the room. My mind takes me back to the villages, to the slums, to the people from different corners of the world that have changed my perspective on life. My body continues to move with a strange out-of-body strength, as I once again look deep into the beautiful eyes of those facing an unfair life filled with suffering and challenges that are unimaginable and unjustifiable. Starving children; people living in shacks with no beds, showers, or stoves; children's brothels operating in broad daylight. There is a great deal going on in our world that need not be, and it has been a blessing to be able to use music and dance to give others a glimpse of its reality and maybe, just maybe, inspire a few to take action.
The experience competing for the title of Miss America and spending time with these young women from across our nation was truly incredible. It is always a blessing to share a piece of yourself with a group of strangers, but to share it with a group of inspiring, kind, internally beautiful and driven women was beyond words.
May Every Sunrise Hold More Promise,
And Every Sunset Hold More Peace.
~Blessing~
