Michigan Covenanter to Compete in Miss America Pageant

Stacy Essebaggers, a 21-year-old from the Evangelical Covenant Church of Whitehall, was crowned Miss Michigan at the pageant in Muskegon in mid-June. She will be in Atlantic City for two weeks before the pageant after one week of orientation and introductions with other contestants in Philadelphia.

In what the young woman describes as "the biggest surprise of the year," Essebaggers was selected from a field of 27 contestants. The first-time Miss Michigan entrant qualified for the state finals after placing first in the Miss Great Lakes Scholarship Pageant. The state honor carried with it a $12,000 cash prize.

Family is important to Essebaggers, who says her mother, Cory, and father, Wayne, are her biggest supporters. Breast Cancer Awareness and Prevention is Stacy's platform for the Miss America Pageant - her mother is a breast cancer survivor of 13 years.

Faith is also at the core of the life of Miss Michigan 2001. Stacy grew up in the Whitehall Covenant Church where she was confirmed. She says she felt keenly supported by God during the Miss Michigan event. "I went into the week saying this is in God's hands - He knows who is going to win - and I was so relaxed," she said in describing her preparations for the June pageant to a group of local residents at a Fruithall Township festival. "I was blessed with poise and a tremendous confidence that I never had before." To learn more about the Miss Michigan Pageant and breast cancer awareness, listen to Stacy's speech at www.michiganadventure.com/missmi.ram.

Essebaggers has already started traveling to many statewide events in her role as Miss Michigan, sometimes three events per weekend, according to Stacy's mother. Because of her exceptionally busy schedule, Stacy has decided to take a year off from the University of Michigan, where she was an English major. She recently trekked across the Mackinac Bridge as part of a charity event for breast cancer called "PJs Final Run," which is part of "Coast to Coast for the Cure," the single longest running cancer fund-raiser in American history.

At the Miss Michigan Pageant, Essebaggers won her preliminary round of the talent competition with a clogging routine she learned this summer. A three-sport athlete at Whitehall High School, she has been clogging since her early teens. She started dance lessons at age six.

Essebaggers became interested in the Miss Michigan Pageant after meeting a former pageant contestant. "She didn't do the makeup and wasn't devastated when she broke a nail," her mother said of Stacy's childhood interests. "But she loves to dance and loves to clog and she thought that it would be nice to be on stage again and maybe get scholarship money for it."

For more information about the Miss Michigan Pageant, visit the pageant web site at www.missmichigan.org.

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