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Michael
Connie

Strawberry Festival 2003

On May 3, 2003, the city of Dayton held its 27th Tennessee Strawberry King/Queen Pageant as part of the annual Strawberry Festival. The pageant crowned Miss and Mister in all age divisions, as well as Overall Miss and Overall Mister for the boy and girl who received the highest marks from all divisions.

We entered our beautiful, energetic daughter, Myah, in the pageant to "defend" her Tot Miss and Overall Miss titles from last year. Only this year, she moved up a division and competed for Wee Miss, ages 3-4. We bought her a beautiful white dress with pink flowers in the bodice and pink lace trim in the skirt.

This year, she had to go out on stage by herself and be interviewed by the emcee. She didn't seem to be nervous about that at all. When all the girls walked on stage, she had her hands on her hips and her head held high and the biggest smile on her face. Then, each girl was brought out individually, and when it was Myah's turn, she didn't hesitate at all, smiling and waving at her family in the audience.

The emcee asked Myah what her favorite movie was and she answered "I like Imagination Island". She was so excited she kept nodding her head, so when the emcee asked if she had a puppy, he thought she was nodding yes. He asked what her puppy dogs' name was, and she answered, "I don't have a puppy dog!" very matter of factly and so cute that the audience began to laugh and clap. This startled her and she jumped up and down, turned and ran off stage. She would not go back out for the rest of the interview, but the judges said they had already recorded her marks.

We were so proud of her whether she won anything or not, but we figured that she probably would not win since she ran off stage. After the individual interviews, all the girls went out on stage together again and they announced the winners. Myah received a medal for best dressed. Then they called the 2nd runner up and the 1st runner up and then they called Myah as the winner of Wee Miss 2003.

She WON! She was crowned Wee Miss and received a trophy about 4 feet tall. This year we knew to stay until the end of the pageant to find out who received the Overall Miss title. Again, we were uncertain of her chances since she had run off stage. But the judges were able to see her spark and personality in the short interview she did give and once again, she received the highest marks of all the winners. So Myah won Overall Miss again, taking home a trophy at least 6 feet tall.

The best part of the story is that after the pageant, she was playing in the cafeteria at Rhea County High School and saw a puppy out the window trying to cross the creek outside. The puppy got stuck and couldn't get up the bank. So Myah and Mommy rescued the puppy from the creek. Myah wanted to keep the puppy so we drove around the neighborhood until we found someone who knew the puppy was indeed an abandoned stray. We took the puppy home and she is now part of our family. Myah named her Alanea after the spider in Charlottes Web.

Below are pictures of the pageant and parade. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter, her beauty shines from inside her.