Ash Grove’s Kelley shines at National American Miss Missouri pageant

Will attend national competition in Florida this fall following good showing at state pageant held in Nebraska
A recent Ash Grove High School graduate made a strong showing recently at a Miss Missouri pageant. Shae Kelley, 18, competed in the teen division of the National American Miss (NAM) Missouri pageant, held at Omaha, Neb. on June 28 through June 30.
Kelley placed as the fifth runner up from Missouri in the competitions all of the contestants were required to compete in, and also placed in the five other optional competitions.
“The four required (competitions) were the formal wear competition, personal introduction, interview, and then we had to do a charity event to prove that we were active in our community,” she said. “And then (for) our optional events, I chose to do two runway model wears, which is where you go on a runway in an outfit that you chose, and you acted as if you are on an actual red-carpet runway. And then I did two casual wear runway models, which is where you get to choose outfits that you would normally wear outside of the pageant that make you feel like you are the bomb. And you get to do practically anything you want on stage, and then exit when you were told to. (Finally) … I did a Top Model runway shoot, which was a paid professional photography event that we were graded on how we did.”
Pageant has different goal
Kelley placed third in two of the model wears and won some other awards as well.
“I also won a Spotlight Award,” she said, “a participation award, and I won Miss Missouri Spirit for the teen division, which (was because) I was the most uplifting all weekend to my girls.”
The NAM pageants, Kelley said, are different from traditional beauty pageants because they don’t focus on a contestant’s physical beauty.
“National American Miss was founded by a bunch of women owners,” she said. “Their goal was ideally to boost women up rather than break them down in pageants, since a lot of them are very derogatory. So, the goal of the pageant wasn’t beauty. It was, ‘How confident can you be? How proud you are of making these life skills and building yourself and your fellow teammates up in doing this? I’ve always wanted to get into modeling or pageants or something girly like that, but I’ve always been terrified of what would come of it because not a lot of women foundations are actually positive for women.”
Kelley also said that a lot of the reported bullying that supposedly happens in other pageants is not tolerated in NAM.
“In National American Miss, if a girl were to shred one of your outfits, she would be eliminated,” Kelley said. “She’d be completely removed from the competition, because sabotage is not tolerated, let alone even talking down to your girls, because they don’t want to make it a negative experience. Other pageants, though, it’s not really talked about or dismissed. They say they don’t want you to do things like that, but it’s also not really punished.”
To compete in Orlando in fall
With the end of the NAM Missouri Pageant, Kelley said she is turning her attention to the NAM National Pageant in Orlando, Fla, which takes place on Thanksgiving weekend. She plans to use the experience she gained in the Missouri pageant when she competes in Orlando.
“I have learned to live in the moment,” she said. I’ve always been somebody who’s struggled and overthought everything, but those three days up in Omaha during the pageant were some of the three best days of my life. The first day I went in terrified. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I was scared. But after that, I just realized that I only had three days to win this, if I really wanted to, and you have to (fight for) it. You can’t constantly in life tiptoe around. Sometimes you just have to go for it. And that’s definitely going to help me in nationals.”
Kelley is raising funds for her competition in Florida, and towards that end has a Go Fund Me page at www.gofundme.com titled “Help Shae go to NAM Nationals.”