There she was, Miss America

Miss America was a lot taller when I was a child.
Being in the same building, the same common area and the same auditorium with Nina Davuluri, Miss America 2014, briefly on Saturday, was a larger than life experience for me.
I was nearly as giddy as Amy Farrah Fowler when Sheldon gave her a tiara on The Big Bang Theory. But I reeled it in.
Davuluri was at our community high school to headline its World's Fair and promote her platform and philanthropy.
The high school was raising money for Circle of Women* as part of its Student Diversity Council's two-day program to appreciate foreign countries and cultures. The Iran booth was next to the Israel booth. This year there was a North Korea booth to match the South Korea booth. The China delegation had ping pong and mahjong tables at ready. And there was food of all flavors and singing and dance performances followed.
I went as the guest of my friend whose daughter was behind the South Africa exhibit. In the seven years my children attended the high school I never went to the event. Miss America's attending was probably what lured me there.
Growing up in the Philadelphia area, the Miss America Pageant was one of my favorite seasonal events. Despite signaling the end of summer, it ranked up there with the Mummers Parade and watching "The Wizard of Oz." I never dreamed of being in the pageant, but I sure always wanted to attend it.
I'd walked the same Atlantic City boardwalk growing up, the contestants still parade down. You knew it was the end of summer when the stores and restaurants began taping photographs of the contestants in their windows.
Once, with a nearly third-degree sunburn, I dragged my grandmother a good hour down the boards to try and sneak inside the Atlantic City Convention Center -- the epi-center of the most important pageant in the world. 
The Miss America Pageant was conceived in 1920 to extend the summer vacation season at the Jersey Shore beyond Labor Day Weekend. In my house it meant TV dinners in the 60s and 70s with my Grandma Fisher (mom's mom) and watching way past normal bedtime to see who would be crowned America's "ideal" young woman.
The contestants from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, were like Barbie dolls that had come to life.
My grandmother and I would of course always root for Miss Pennsylvania but we had other favorites. The talent competition was our favorite part. I liked the baton twirlers and singers, she loved the piano players. Davuluri performed a Bollywood fusion dance in the talent segment.
I remember thinking Miss America, at 20-21, was really old. Now I feel really old thinking that I could be Davuluri's mother.
I'm sure the current Miss America's mother is kvelling about her daughter. Davuluri, 24, whose platform is diversity and cultural competency, is one of only 93 women in the country who can call herself Miss America.
She was at Lincolnshire's Adlai Stevenson High School on an official crown-on-her-head Miss America visit, one of thousands she will make during her 12-month tenure that puts about 20,000 miles on her each month. She is never in one city for more than 18 to 48 hours.
You can actually book a Miss America appearance on line on their official website.
I am not a fan of reality pageant shows. I really am not comfortable with the whole bathing suit issue. But those of you loyal blog readers know I am not comfortable with bathing suits at all.
Davuluri, who mentioned to a whole room of teen-agers that she has dealt with eating issues in her life, defended that suit segment of the competition as a way to show how healthy and fit contestants are. She insists proper eating and fitting in an exercise routine even on her busy schedule helps her maintain.
The reality is the Miss America Pageant has handed out $45 million in scholarship money to its contestants. Davuluri won $50,000 with her title and crown. Thru the pageant system the former Miss New York has accumulated $91,000 in scholarship money to offset her undergraduate degree in brain behavior and cognitive science at the University of Michigan. She has already completed post-baccalaureate work and plans to go to medical school in 2015.
The way she captivated the audience and educated us on the hard work that went into her becoming Miss America, I found myself secretly wishing that she would run for the U.S. Senate.
Davuluri is the first Miss America of Indian descent, the second Asian to wear the crown. I only mention this because of all the crap from the crazies she took after being crowned. Somehow being born in Syracuse, NY was not American enough for a certain segment of the population. 
She was raised by grandparents in India before moving back to the USA to live with her parents in Oklahoma, Michigan and New York.
English was her second language, when she moved back to the states from India. On her journey to becoming who she is, she had to deal with racism and discrimination until she found her comfort level, and a few more "brown" people like herself, in college.
She has launched a social media campaign to encourage constructive and civil dialogue on diversity issues. The daughter of a physician and IT specialist, she has also promoted STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to high school and college students. 
There she was, looking like every one's daughter in very high heels and comfortably holding a microphone. Earlier, before taking the stage to talk about perseverance, she took photos while wearing her crown for the Diversity Council's charity.
The crown has four points on it -- representing the pageant pillars: style, service, scholarship and success. Miss America gets to keep the crown she had pinned to her head the night of the pageant, when her reign ends. The organization holds onto a copy just in case it gets, misplaced, stolen or broken, while she tours.
Even when it isn't on, Davuluri embodies those pillars.

* Circle of Women is an organization that builds and supports secondary schools accessible to young women in developing countries.