Pomegranate Festival Hosts Royal Visit

By MAGGIE MCMURRAY

Moapa Valley Progress

This year’s Pomegranate Art Festival had two special visitors. The reigning Ms. America International 2017 Tracy Lynn Rodgers and the reigning Miss Nevada America 2017 Andrea Martinez visited the festival, posing with admirers for pictures and spreading goodwill among festival attendees.
Rodgers lived in Moapa Valley for many years but currently lives in St. George.
“I wanted to come down and thank everyone for the support they’ve given me through the years, through my accident, and through my reign,” she said.

Martinez joined Rodgers at the festival for the chance to get out, talk to others about her platform, and to let girls know about the great scholarship opportunities that Miss Nevada America provides.
Rodgers was crowned last March and has enjoyed a busy year traveling from coast to coast and sharing her platform, “Your tomorrow starts today.” She shares her personal story about facing adversity as she worked to recover and come back from a devastating car accident that occurred in June of 2011. Rodgers sustained critical injuries in the accident.
“I want to share my personal story with others,” she said. “It is a story of hope, inspiration, and motivation. I want them to know that there are no adverse events or circumstances that get to define you.”

Martinez is a newcomer to pageants. She participated in her first pageant last January, when she was crowned Miss Clark County. At that time, Martinez had earned a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and was working on a master’s degree in forensic psychology. She was looking for a way to help pay for graduate school.

Last September she was watching the Miss America pageant with her dad for the first time ever and he suggested she should try out. She laughed at first, but after checking into it and seeing the kind of scholarships she could earn, she decided to give it a try.
“The Miss America pageant system is the largest provider of scholarships for young women in the world,” Martinez said. “So far I have been able to win $14,000, all of which has gone to further my education.”

After winning her first pageant, Martinez went on to become the reigning Miss Nevada America in June. She then competed in the Miss America pageant in September, one year after watching it for the first time on TV. Although she did not win, she was a top 5 finalist in the Women in STEM category and had a great time.
“It was so amazing just being there,” she said. “It is not the drama you think it is or that the media portrays it as. The girls I was around were incredibly intelligent, well-spoken, and talented. It is a great sisterhood made up of a girl from every state focused on their education and making the world better.”

Both Rodgers and Martinez wanted to get the word out to girls that these are scholarship pageants. Participating is a great way to help pay for school while increasing self-confidence, they said.
“These pageants provide scholarship money to more than just the overall winners,” Martinez said. “Each pageant has multiple categories that all come with scholarship money.”

Rodgers stressed that pageants are about more than just outward beauty. “People underestimate pageant girls,” Rodgers said. “But when you are working as a judge, as I have done, you read their bios and learn they are smart, intelligent, beautiful, fit, talented young women.”

The path to Miss America starts at the local level and both Martinez and Rodgers encourage young women 17 and over to get involved. Local preliminary contests start in January with the Miss Las Vegas pageant. Although there is no pageant in Moapa Valley, there are many other Clark County pageants to choose from. In fact, Martinez said, there is a crown awarded for about every four contestants. That means scholarship money as well. There is an additional scholarship program for younger teens aged 13-16 called the Miss Nevada Outstanding Teen program.

Young women interested in either program are encouraged to get more information at www.missnevada.org.