From walking in the Milan Fashion Week to earning national titles, junior Maisie Adams has been competing in pageants from a young age. While she loves to dress up and get her makeup done professionally, she has also gained valuable skills like public speaking and becoming more involved in her community through pageantry.

Adams was first introduced to pageantry through her cousin, who is a part of the Miss America organization. She got her first “pageant” experience through the Princess Program, which is under the Miss America organization. This program pairs young girls ages six to 12 with an older girl, usually a Miss or a Teen, and allows the older girls to mentor the younger girls in pageantry. Through this program, Adams fell in love with the feeling of being on stage. 

Her love for pageantry drove her to compete in her first official competition at National American Miss (NAM) Minnesota State at age 11. Contrary to popular belief, pageantry is more than just modeling dresses and wearing pretty makeup. There are other aspects in pageant competitions as well, such as interviews and improvisational speeches. With this competition being her very first, Adams vividly recalls it being a terrifying experience for her. “I just remember being so scared to do the interview that when I sat down, I had this distinct memory of not being able to speak, just stuttering, and being so nervous,” said Adams. Despite this struggle, Adams placed first runner up and then went to nationals for the All American title by the time she turned 12.

Adams credits pageantry for improving her confidence and being able to speak fluently. When she was younger, Adams struggled with a speech impediment, and her family believed that having to give speeches or do interviews at pageant competitions would help her overcome it. “They were like ‘It’ll push you out of your comfort zone, and you’ll learn how to talk on stage in front of judges,’ and it was actually pageantry and kind of pushing myself past what I was comfortable with [that] helped me not only [become] way more confident, but also get past some of those speech impediment issues that I had,” said Adams. 

Many pageant organizations also emphasize academic achievement and community involvement for participants. In 2023, Adams started her own non-profit called Buffy’s Friends Forever, which she began after a traumatic experience of trying to treat her sick English bulldog, Buffy, who was diagnosed with immune-mediated hemolytic anemia. Luckily, Buffy survived after multiple treatments. She has spent hours creating thousands of little boxes filled with necessities such as food, tissues, hand sanitizers and more for pet owners who have gone through similar tribulations. “The whole point is to create a little bit of compassion [for] people to know they’re not alone and that we’ve dealt with the same thing,” said Adams. She has partnered with the Animal Emergency and Referral Center (AERC) here in Minnesota to donate these boxes and has raised over $43,000 in donations for her nonprofit. 

Aside from creating a successful nonprofit, Adams also has other notable achievements. With a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Adams got the chance to walk in the Milan Fashion Week show in Milan, Italy in Feb. 2023. While she only walked one show, this experience allowed Adams to get a taste of what modeling was like, which is something that she is interested in. “We just wanted to dip our feet into what modeling is. It was really fun, and I [had] a good time,” said Adams.

Throughout Adams’s pageant career, she has also achieved some notable awards. In 2022, Adams won America’s Most Beautiful Junior Miss, which led her to compete in nationals where she won the National Junior Miss title as the Minnesota Junior Miss. In 2023, she won NAM Minnesota Junior Teen, where she then competed in nationals and won second runner up for the overall national junior teen title. This past summer, Adams competed in Ideal Miss and got first runner up for the national teen title. She also won National Top Model and National Actress at NAM. 

Whether it is walking the runway in a sparkling dress or giving back to her community, Adams’s pageantry career has impacted her in many different ways. With her love  for the values that make up the competition, Adams hopes to continue competing in pageants in the future.