Dunbar Pageant Queen

In fact, we have a pageant queen here at Dunbar. 

Vanessa Ramos was the national preteen winner in 2017, and now is Miss Kentucky Teen for the National American Miss pageant. She says she has always done pageants growing up, especially wanting to do them after seeing her older sister compete. 

“After I saw [my sister] win the Miss Kentucky title in 2011, like ‘oh wow, I really want to try doing something like this’,” said Ramos. 

Ramos said that when she does pageants, she tries to do the ones with the most integrity behind them. 

“Pageants are all about finding yourself and finding who you are and sharing your beliefs,” she said. “But of course I have made the mistake in the past to do pageants that aren’t as nice as other ones.”

There are also a lot of stereotypes associated with pageants and the girls competing in pageants, including judgement about their personality. 

However, these stereotypes are blatantly untrue. 

Junior Jordan Viele is also a friend of Ramos. Nevertheless, Viele said she used to think pageant girts were snooty and fake. 

Although, after becoming friends with Ramos, Viele said, “[Ramos] completely blew those stereotypes out the window.”

Senior Kate Patrick, one of Ramos’s friends’, said that she didn’t even know that Ramos was a pageant queen. 

“[Ramos] doesn’t talk about it,” Patrick said. “Though I’m not surprised because she is beautiful, humble and super nice, but I would have never guessed it off the bat.”

Patrick talked about how much she and Vanessa had in common. They both like to play video games and have done theater all of high school. 

Ramos was even the lead in the school musical, Footloose, this past winter and has acted and danced her entire life. 

“Being on stage all my life has definitely helped with the confidence and has made me do pageants too because it was another opportunity where I could be on stage,” Ramos said. 

One of the four events of the pageants that contestants are judged on (in this particular pageant) are community service. Doing pageants has given Ramos the chance to do a lot of different things around her community.

Ramos had the opportunity to meet and walk with brain-injury survivors. 

“I’m a brain injury survivor myself, so getting to meet other brain injury survivors and walk with them and raise money as well was such a great experience,” she said. 

Being a part of these issues and expanding them over the Miss Kentucky Teen platform is something that Ramos is extremely passionate about, which is why she encourages young girls to do pageants. 

“They really do help you grow into a better person where you can show everyone that you can be a confident, amazing woman.”