Miss Northwestern Ohio 2014

All 13 contestants before crowning.

This past weekend, I had the chance to compete in the Miss Northwestern Ohio 2014 pageant. This pageant is a local pageant that serves as a preliminary pageant to move on to Miss Ohio, which is produced by the Miss Ohio Scholarship Program, where one person will move on to Miss America. This system is completely unaffiliated Donald Trump's Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, which are great systems that allow for many opportunities for contestant. 

Chelsi and I after the pageant

Pageants affiliated with the Miss America Organization must have multiple phases of competition that account for a certain percentage of the total score. These phases include interview (25 percent), lifestyle and fitness (15 percent), on stage question (5 percent), talent (35 percent) and evening gown (20 percent). Each of these phases include rules such as remaining behind the podium while in interview, talents may only be a maximum of one minute and 30 seconds long and no necklace during the swimsuit portion of the competition. Each contestant must accumulate a $100 donation for the Children's Miracle Network to compete in a local pageant up to a certain monetary amount.

Rules aside, the actual competitions are so much fun. For this pageant, we were asked to come to Defiance on Friday for rehearsals before the production on Saturday. Each contestant had a hostess that they stayed with on Friday night and most contestants were paired up with another contestant for the weekend. Dominique was my roomie for the competition. I could not have been paired with a better girl! She was sweet, funny and we had a lot of common interest. Plus, anyone willing to eat Wendy's with me the night before a pageant is pretty cool in my book.  Our hostess was named Karen and she was a pretty rockin' lady. Not only did she open up her home to us for the weekend, she showed us some of the best local businesses in Defiance. 

After waking up and getting ready for the day on Saturday, we headed to the home of one of the directors of the pageant where they served us brunch. Interviews were set to begin at around 11:30, but Dominique and I had interviews later in the afternoon. With our spare time, Karen took us to a new store that had opened in Defiance called Nest, then to two more stores in the area that had Christmas decorations and cute gift items. While Karen was finishing up at one of the stores, I headed next door with Dominique to a coffee shop called Cabin Fever. While I was there, I tried this awesome latte called Caramel Cabin Fever and bought a half pound of dark chocolate covered espresso beans, which I had never tried before but loved! On our way back to Karen's house I spotted a cheesecake place and mentioned that I loved cheesecake, which Karen immediately turned around to take us to. Karen treated Dominique and I to the dessert of our choice, I went with a sea-salted caramel cheesecake. A Little Slice of Heaven is easily the best cheesecake I have ever ate in my entire life and I would recommend it to any cheesecake lover!

When interview time rolled around, I was feeling pretty confident. In typical Brittany fashion I was running behind and ended up doing my makeup in the car on the way to our interview. My personal interview went fantastic. Interview is by far my favorite part of the competition. I was animated, I was confident and I felt like I answered everything the best that I could. To celebrate our interview being finished, Karen took Dominique and I out to lunch at a local golf course that had a really amazing restaurant in the club house. With time left to kill, we went back to Karen's to pack our things and get ready for the rest of the competition.

Some snapshots from my night

The rest of the night went by in a blur. Before I knew it, it was time for crowning. Kara Mitchell won and she totally deserved it! She looked amazing all night, gave an incredible answer for her on stage question and performed her talent beautifully. When the pageant was finished, I came off the stage to meet my mom, Megan and Jordan who had came to cheer me on. My mom introduced me to Tony Alcosiba and Larry Nakano who were visitors from Hawaii that are heavily involved in the Miss America Organization. 

Tony, Larry and I after the pageant

My mom helped me pack up all of my clothing before we went to the after party. While it was great to catch up with some of my pageant friends, I was definitely ready to get home and relax. I learned a lot this weekend and I feel like I've improved since my last pageant. But, now it's time to focus and get ready for the next one. Miss Hilliard 2014, here I come!