Among the 35 contestants on stage and in the wings of the Jack Howard Theatre, current Miss Louisiana Lacey Sanchez is encouraging each of her peers to just be themselves.
"I really had no pageant experience early on. I was an athlete, a pole vaulter. The runway I grew up with was the 100 feet in front of me that led to the bar," she said.
And now, much like the exhilaration of a successful vault, Sanchez pleasantly looks back at her reign as Miss Louisiana. She focused her work with youth through a platform titled "Designed To Move". A message for children and teens to think of physical fitness as playing, not exercise, where it can appear to be more of a chore.
Sanchez recalled her first encounter and eventual working relationship with the Children's Miracle Network. "I was a patient for a brief time when I was 12," she says, "the staff was so kind, and they took a personal interest to each child. That was something that stuck with me and I began to do work with CMN," said Sanchez.
After her reign as Miss Louisiana, Sanchez plans to return to LSU to complete her master's degree in mass communications.
