Nicole Kelly - Miss Accidental America

 

 

Right out of college, I decided to enter the Miss Iowa competition. I had never done a pageant in my entire life, but I had remembered watching those glamorous girls on TV growing up and I decided to prove that I could be just like them. So, I had three months to prepare before I would go up against 30 other girls from all over the state of Iowa. And if I won, I would win my ticket to compete at the coveted Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. 

 

But I had no idea where to start. I needed to find myself an expert in pageantry, and I found that expert in a sassy woman from the Jersey shore. She was intensely direct, and she had a reputation for training fierce, strong pageant competitors. She honestly was like my Michael Caine from Miss Congeniality. [audience laughter]

 

So, we got to work. We booked open conference room spaces. And in these quiet moments under fluorescent lights, she would teach me the very important things, like the right amount of hip sway to use when walking in a swimsuit on stage, which, by the way, is enough to be confident and sassy, but not enough to be overly sexy. [audience laughter] We studied together. We had makeup contouring lessons together. She taught me to say yes instead of yeah, and taught me the latest sparkly styles that we're currently in on the pageant scene. 

 

When the week-long Miss Iowa competition began, I started the competition in a private interview with the judges where I think I perfectly executed saying yes instead of yeah. Up next on stage was the preliminary competition and this was a roller coaster of emotions. But after the first night, they called my name as the winner of the swimsuit preliminary award winner. [audience laughter] 

 

The judges had picked me for walking sassy, but not too sexy in my five-inch heels and bikini. [audience laughter] The next night was the talent portion of competition, and my stomach was churning with fear for this part. You see, I had chosen to sing my favorite song, Defying Gravity, from my favorite musical, Wicked. But that is a freaking hard song to sing. [audience laughter] 

 

You see, the Broadway musical Wicked came out when I was in middle school and I was obsessed. My poor parents would drive me hours to see whichever touring production of the show was closest to my middle of nowhere hometown. My pageant dress was perfectly beaded with all green beads, a nod to my favorite character, the Wicked Witch of the West. 

 

As they called my name, I walked out into the shining spotlight, took center stage and looked out into the dark audience. The track began and the song came out of me with ease. I felt like my heart was flying with every note. Before I knew it, we had made it to the end of the competition, and all 30 girls came out on stage for the final crowning of Miss Iowa. I had made the top five cut, and surrounded by a sea of nervous girls in hairspray. I took a silent breath to hold as the competition host began to announce the final ballot. 

 

Fourth runner up, he didn't say my name. Third runner up, also not me. Second runner up, he didn't say my name. Suddenly, it was just me and one other girl standing, holding each other, shaking, waiting to see who would be awarded the title of Miss Iowa. The audience was silent. You could have heard a pin drop. I could feel my heart beating all the way up to my ears. And then, he said my name. I won. Yeah, I won. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

But let me tell you, I was in complete shock. I was barely able to laugh or cry or even talk. And before I knew it, they were putting a crown on top of my head, giving me a sparkly sash, handing me a bouquet of flowers, handing me keys to a car I would get to drive for a year for free. And then, suddenly, a person honestly brought out a fur coat and put that on me too. [audience laughter] It was a whirlwind of emotion. 

 

There were hugs, and photo flashes and confetti for hours. [audience laughter] I was truly on cloud nine. I had done it. The next morning, with only about three hours of sleep under my belt, due to all of that excitement, I arrived at a local hotel conference room to get into hair and makeup for my official Miss Iowa headshot. I was busy smiling for a flashing camera while a person stood beside and held a fan, so my hair would blow just right in the picture. When a smiling TV news reporter and cameraman arrived for my first interview as Miss Iowa, the interview went great. I told them how excited I was to have won the title and how unbelievable it felt to be going to Miss America in just three short months. 

 

Later that night, my parents and I gathered around the hotel TV to watch the interview I had given earlier in the day. The anchorman entering the piece smiled and said, “Last night, a woman with a disability won the crown of Miss Iowa and is headed to Miss America.” My heart sank as I watched the package begin. I watched them cut away from my face, focusing in on my torso, zooming in closer and closer and closer until the entire end of my missing arm filled the whole hotel room screen. 

 

You see, I was born with my full right arm, but only half of my left arm. Nothing else was different or wrong. I just came out without my left hand. And so, my parents had always raised me to follow the lead of my older brother and sister, and I participated in everything. I was a lifeguard at the local YMCA, I had played trombone in band and I even threw a perfect inning as a pitcher in junior league softball. [audience cheers and applause]

 

Yeah. But I was always aware of my difference. When going off to summer camps, I knew that I always had to come up with funny jokes about having one hand in order to make my other cabin mates comfortable. Strangers would always point and whisper in amazement if I ever had to stop to tie my shoes in public. 

 

As I watched that camera zoom in closer and closer, the larger the image got, the smaller I felt. It was like I was a prop in my own story. It was as if the reporter was saying, “Isn't this sweet, kind girl, lucky?” It made me feel utterly stripped and violated. Don't get me wrong, I expected to speak publicly about having one hand if I had won the title of Miss Iowa. But that is not what we had talked about in the interview. That was their voice, their packaging, turning my story into pure inspiration. I had won the title, expecting it to prove how very like the other girls I was, and yet here was this first story only focused on my difference. 

 

In shock, I turned my head to my parents. I opened my mouth to try to speak, but nothing came out. My parents quickly jumped in to try to console me. This was just one bad news reporter and just one bad news station to my complete horror. Hours later, every news outlet around the world had picked up on my story. My inspiring story had spread like wildfire, and everybody wanted to talk to the disabled girl going to Miss America. I got requests to be a guest on the View. The Today show asked me to interview with them, and Jay Leno even used me as a setup to one of his jokes in his opening monologue. 

 

The entire world was telling me that they were both shocked and inspired that someone like me could win a ticket to compete at Miss America. It didn't matter if I had interviewed best, sang well or worked really hard to have rock hard abs in my swimsuit. [audience laughter] It was clear that I had not won the title of Miss Iowa, but my disability had. I continued to receive a multitude of interview requests. And out of complete anger, I said no to them all. 

 

Three months later, I arrived in Atlantic City for Miss America feeling utterly defeated. I continued to receive a magnitude of attention and I hated being used as a marketing tool for the impending life television telecast, because I was always the prop and it was always stories of pure inspiration. But I still wanted to be crowned Miss America. I still wanted to prove that I could do it. I still wanted to make my entire extended family and the three busloads of people who had come all the way from my tiny hometown to watch me compete proud. 

 

I still saw this as a chance to prove that I was no different. I saw this as another chance to set the record straight. I didn't win the title of Miss America, and I returned to Iowa ready to crawl into my shell. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to stew in my anxiety and my depression. Everything about that experience had felt so out of my control. 

 

A couple of weeks later, while I was still very much in hiding, an email hit my inbox from a woman in Long Island. It read, “Seeing you on the Miss America pageant, my husband and I started crying. We held each other as we watched this beautiful, confident, sweet girl strutting her stuff up on the stage. This was the sign that got us through the initial shock of learning that our unborn baby girl was going to be born with one hand. And now, we can't wait to welcome her, and hug her and show her that she too can do anything.”

 

I was so focused on the validation of my able-bodied friends that I had completely denied the opportunity to proudly step up and represent others like me. I was so afraid of my arm determining how other people saw me that I let my rejection of it do the same. This was just one of hundreds of emails that flooded my inbox from families across the country all living with children with one hand. 

 

You know, in my favorite musical, Wicked, at the end of the first act, the Wicked Witch of the West actually meets the Wizard of Oz. When she meets him, she finds that he cannot magically fix the problem that she has of the way that the world perceives her green skin. With this realization, she proudly steps into her true self and fully embraces the way that the world perceives her. I realized for the first time that I had gone into this competition all wrong. Instead of my messaging being trying to be how very like everyone I really was, I should have been proudly embracing the reality of my difference. 

 

So, instead of becoming Miss America, I became queen to an entire group of parents and kids desperately looking to change the perception around disability, to change the negativity I, myself, had fallen victim to. I think my favorite character from Wicked says it best. “I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so. Some things I cannot change but 'till I try I'll never know.” Thank you.