Chat with 2012 Miss Fall Rush, Mi’a Callens!
She’s got style, she’s got grace. Yes, Mi’a Callens has it all. Winning Auburn’s 2012 Miss Fall Rush was obviously not her first rodeo. Mi’a started competing at age 14 and is now an expert at charming her way to the top. She has also won Miss Jefferson County’s Outstanding Teen of 2011 and Miss Alabama’s Outstanding Teen of 2011. Aside from competing, Mi’a is also known for establishing a fundraiser that the Make a Wish Foundation has put to action. Mi’a gives us an inside look at competing, her fundraiser, and the passion that started it all.
HC: What’s you favorite part about pageants?
Mi’a: “I love preparation. It’s probably one of my favorite parts. Just getting ready for the pageant. The anticipation, it’s like you work so hard until the day of and then it’s finally here. So probably preparation!”
HC:What’s your talent? How many years have you been practicing?
Mi’a:“I sing and play the piano for my talent. I’ve been playing the piano since I was in fourth grade and I’ve been singing for forever. I’ve also been dancing since I was really little. So I’ve been practicing for many years. I’d say this is probably my tenth year for pretty much all of those.”
HC: What kind of music do you play?
Mi’a: “All kinds of music. I play classical and contemporary, but for pageants I compete with contemporary songs.”
HC:How long does it take to prepare for a show?
Mi’a: “It just depends on which pageant you’re doing. For Miss Fall Rush we prepared maybe once or twice a week for two months at the fraternity house. We just practiced opening numbers and closing numbers, as well as sequences throughout the pageant. So for that one, we prepared for about two months. On average it just depends. I’m competing in Miss Alabama this summer. I’ve been preparing for it about maybe seven months now and I won my preliminary last July, so I’ve been preparing and practicing all the way up until June. You have to learn how to manage your time. The closer you get to the pageant the more you practice. Since January I’ve been practicing different parts like talent every single day. When it comes to interviews I don’t like to practice so much where it becomes micromanaged or robotic, so I’ll go over different types of current events. I watch the news everyday and about a month or so after I’ll have mock interviews probably twice a week.”
HC: Have you ever found the interview questions hard to answer?
Mi’a: “Not necessarily. I just try to prepare myself for any type of answer they’re going to ask me. A lot of the times they just want to ask you your opinion, so an answer is never right or wrong, it’s just what you think and how you can handle the questions. They might ask you something about abortion and you know that’s always a touchy subject, but they just want to see how you handle the question and how you answer it. They’ll ask you things very controversial or just things about yourself.”
HC: Have you ever messed up on stage?
Mi’a: “No, not necessarily. Say you make a bump in your talent or something, no one else really knows. Only you are the one that knows that, so if I ever feel like I’ve messed up I really haven’t. I just have to prepare myself for that. And anything that comes my way.
HC: So you’ve never tripped or anything like that?
Mi’a: “Luckily no. I’m extremely clumsy, normally. Like I could probably fall down these sets of stairs but when it comes to pageants, I don’t know, the grace just comes to me. I’m not really sure how.”
HC:Do you have any traditions or superstitions before going on stage?
Mi’a: “Not necessarily. I do have a lot of rituals before preforming my talent. I warm up my voice a certain way, I have my I-pod warm up songs, and I drink a lot of water. I always have a lot of cough drops too right before I go on and sing. But no, I don’t really have any rituals. I sometimes get really emotional and will start crying for no reason because I’m happy. If I feel like I’ve done really well after a segment of a pageant I’ll start crying because I’m so happy. I’m an emotional person. I like to pray a lot before I go on stage. Its just something I do as part of my faith.”
HC: Is there anyone in particular that inspired you to start competing in pageants?
Mi’a: “Yes, my friend named Amanda. She goes to Troy University and is just a few years older than me. She has always been one of my role models. Her and her mother kept asking me and told me I would be perfect for it and would love it. Who wouldn’t want to be a princess for a day? So I just started with my high school pageant, which is the first one I did, and from there I fell in love with it and continued. It’s been really fun.”
HC:Do you plan on running in any more Auburn pageants or competitions in the future?
Mi’a: “Well I cant right now because of Miss Alabama. I can do any type of pageant that’s not associated with it, like Miss Fall Rush was a great opportunity. I won a preliminary and its called Miss Patriot, in the Homewood area of Alabama, and so I’ll be representing that area in June at Miss Alabama. So that’s my next big pageant and my next big event. I’m excited!”
HC: Are you still involved in the Make a Wish Foundation?
Mi’a: “I am. I got involved in the Make A Wish Foundation through my family. My cousin Jalen was diagnosed at 18 months old with leukemia and the Make a Wish Foundation granted him a wish. He got to go the That’s So Raven show, when it was on at the time. It was awesome. He met the entire cast and got to spend a week in California and visit different places there. So that just touched my heart and it brought my family so much joy. It’s such a hard time being poked with needles and it’s stressful on the family, so that was great just to see him so happy. Ever since then I’ve been involved. He’s twelve now so I’ve been involved with the foundation for almost ten years now and we love it. My family and I are very involved and I care a lot about it.”
HC: What exactly is Wrap Party?
Mi’a: “The Make A Wish Foundation liked my idea so much that they implemented it into their national program and now kids all over the country can do the same thing I did. But what I did was created this thing called The Make A Wish Wrap Party and what I do is set coin collection boxes throughout the state of Alabama and ill leave them out for the course of three or four months maybe even up to five or six, it just depends. After the course of that time period I bring all the money that we collected in, which are normally coins, and we have a wrap party where we wrap all the coins into their paper wrappings and send them to the banks. It’s normally a twenty-four hour event with a huge girl sleepover. Sometimes I have it at my local dance studio or I’ll have it at my home. We wrap all the coins, and send in all the money to the foundation. So it’s really great and we’ve raised a lot of money throughout it. I do a lot of 5K runs as well and a bunch of other fundraisers. I’ve raised about 30,000 dollars from it. It’s been really fun.”