The Newton Chamber of Commerce banquet was a bittersweet moment for Holly Brand.
The Meridian native and current Miss Mississippi title holder announced that it was her final speaking engagement of her reign.
“I crown the next Miss Mississippi three weeks from tomorrow,” Brand said on Friday at the historic Newton depot. “So this is my last speaking engagement. So I’m a little emotional, but as I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about tonight, I was doing a lot of reflecting on my year.
“And one thing that I think I could take away from this year that I noticed with all the people that I’ve met is that there are so many people who are unaware of what the Miss America organization is really all about.
“Most people watch the Miss Mississippi competition live on Saturday night, and they see us in beautiful gowns, answering onstage questions or two, do a talent and that’s about it. And so tonight I thought, you know what? Well, it’s my last speech. Let’s go out with the bang. And I wanted to talk about what the Miss America Organization really stands for.”
Brand said Miss America centers on the “four points of the crown”: style, success, scholarship and service while the mission is to “prepare great women for the world and to prepare the world for great women.”
One thing that the Miss America Organization does to empower young women is to offer a plethora of scholarships from the local level to the national Miss America program. She said it also helps prepare them by doing interviews and modeling on stage.
“When we see the girls on stage just modeling in evening down or answering an on stage question, it’s it takes a lot of courage to get up there in front of everyone and do that,” Brand said. “There’s a lot of prep that goes into that from doing mock interviews, to watching the news and keeping up with what’s going on in the world, around you to preparing a talent selection, to making sure that you are presenting the best version of yourself to the selection committee and to the audience.”
Brand said the organization has changed from when she first started watching the pageant as a young child, when she might model for her family during the TV broadcast, to competing in the Miss America Outstanding Teen and then becoming Miss Mississippi during the 100th anniversary of the Miss America Organization.
And even though there is no swimsuit competition anymore or it is no longer called a pageant, Brand still believes in the organization, and it has value to young women.
“I always felt that no matter what direction Miss America went in, there was still value in our organization,” Brand said. “People were already planning our funeral. America was not going to survive this. And a lot of my friends who had competed in this organization with me for years were leaving and doing other competitions and exploring other avenues. But I always felt like whether Miss America is rocking her swimsuit on the boardwalk or business suit in board room, Miss America is excellence personified, and who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?”
Brand had no idea what kind of impact she was having on the lives of others until one day when she met a child who was donating to teddy bear drive.
But even as a 14-year-old was running her biggest bear drive to date, the future Miss Mississippi from Meridian found out how much she made an impact on him.
The boy pulled her aside and told her that he was in a car accident with his brother, and the highway patrol officer gave them each a teddy bear.
“He said now, ‘My older brother that was in the accident with me actually didn’t make it. And so I gave his stuffed animal to our baby brother at home,’” Brand said. “And that really changed how I viewed volunteerism in the Miss America Organization as a whole, the impact that it truly does make on not just the candidates, but also the people that the candidates come in contact with every single day while serving as an advocate is truly inspiring.”
