Name: Natalie Benson
Major: Communication studies, 2019
Hometown: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Current title: Miss Orange Coast
Past title: Miss New Mexico’s Outstanding Teen (2010)
Occupation: Cast member, Disneyland Entertainment
Fun Facts from Natalie:
- My favorite food is chicken alfredo from Olive Garden.
- My favorite color is turquoise.
- My favorite place at Chapman is the Piazza.
- My favorite movie is Forrest Gump.
How long have you participated in pageants and when did you get started?
I started participating in pageants when I was 13 years old. I competed in Miss New Mexico’s Outstanding Teen, which is a part of the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen organization. About 12 years ago, Miss America created the Outstanding Teen program to encourage girls to get a jump start on their scholastic and professional goals early in life. I was named First Runner Up for two years in a row, and I won on my third try. At the national pageant, I was named a top 12 finalist and was recognized for having one of the best platforms there.
For those of us who have never been to or participated in a pageant, what is it like?
There are a lot of different elements that go into preparation. But as far as competing in a pageant itself, girls compete in a 10 minute private interview with the judges. This is something that the audience will never see. I personally think that the crown is almost won in the interview. This is the opportunity where judges really get to see the girl; they get to see everything that’s on her resume; they get to ask her about current events, politics, anything is up for grabs in that interview.
After that, the on-stage portion will take place. Traditionally, swimsuit does kickoff the pageant, and I would say swimsuit is probably the most controversial portion of the Miss America competition even though I don’t really think it’s that big of a deal. It’s only 10 percent of the girls’ overall score.
On-stage questions usually follows swimsuit. It is worth 20 percent of the girls’ score. And again, these questions can be any wide range of topics. The Miss America organization expects its titleholders to be well-spoken. I think my question for Miss Orange Coast was fairly simple. It was “Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?” But at the national level, there have been a lot tougher questions such as whether or not the U.S. should be involved in Syria, or obvious questions regarding Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
After on-stage questions is the talent portion of the competition. I have been playing piano since I was about four years old. For my local pageant, I decided to play Pirates of the Caribbean. I am a huge Disney fan, and it’s a crowd favorite, so it was super fun to be able to go out and play that song again.
Lastly is the evening wear portion. I just wore a simple red dress, but girls can wear anything of their choosing. The evening wear portion is interesting to me, because the judges themselves are not supposed to judge the women on the dresses that they pick. But it’s more about seeing the girl in that dress, if they can be poise, if they can be elegant. Judges don’t want to see just a $5,000 gown on stage where they lose the girl in the process. They wanna be able to see the actual girl standing in the dress.
What is your favorite part of the pageant itself?
I like the interview the most, because it allows me to tell the judges where my heart’s at. This is not just a pageant to me, but it is a job. I’ve grown up wanting to be Miss America my entire life. And that’s not a requirement. A lot of girls actually come to the Miss America organization once they find out that it’s scholarship based and that it could actually help pay for their college education. But for me, it’s not just about being able to wear a crown and a sash; it’s so much more than that. I love to give back to this organization. I am already a former with the Miss New Mexico organization and just being able to see how I can change those girls’ lives is so amazing, so when I get in that interview and I can talk to the judges about my platform, my resume, what my goals are for the year, I always leave the room incredibly happy.
I understand you started your own platform, Chemo Courage, can you tell me about that?
Chemo Courage originally started as a science fair experiment when I was in the third grade. My godmother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and even though I was eight years old and knew I couldn’t cure cancer, I still wanted to find some way to help her. So I saw this as a great opportunity and as a great outlet to learn more about chemotherapy and how I could potentially be of help to cancer patients. And so what I decided to do was create a science project around dietary nutrition while undergoing chemotherapy. And I was lucky enough to win that first science fair, but I still had more questions and so in the fifth grade, I did a follow up experiment surrounding the craving of salmon. I had found this correlation around all of the cancer patients, no matter what kind of cancer they had, and found out that salmon is actually an Omega 3 fatty acid which is a cell growth. So when patients are taking chemotherapy, all of that medicine is killing the cells in their body–both the good and the bad. And so it’s pretty much bringing you onto the brink of death, and just stops right at the last second.
I really found that Chemo Courage took off when I was 15 and after I won Miss New Mexico’s Outstanding Teen. Once I had gotten that title, and I had been speaking at Cancer Services of New Mexico events, other cancer organizations just said, “Oh well I want her to talk at my events too,” or “I want her to come and speak at this event.” And so I ended up partnering with six different organizations that year, and Chemo Courage just started having a snowball effect.
So what are your duties as Miss Orange Coast?
It’s kind of up to every single girl to choose what they want to pursue, but there are a couple things that every girl does have to do. One of them is to advocate for Children’s Miracle Network and raise money for them. It’s really amazing that CHOC is here, because I’ll get to work both with Chemo Courage and Children’s Miracle Network all in one. SO we have that responsibility. Every titleholder also has to advocate for their one platform, mine being Chemo Courage, but some of the other more common platforms you see are about eating right, positive body image, anti-bullying or just very personal stories that they have decided that they want to work with.
And then, of course, there is competing at the state title. So I will compete at Miss California this summer.
But other than that, Miss America just believes that this is an opportunity to achieve personal and professional goals. Miss America also realizes that everybody is at a different stage in their life, because it is open to girls ages 17 to 24. So you get a lot of girls who are seniors in high school, getting ready to go to college, and they don’t have all the time in the world. Same with a 21-year-old in the middle of getting her undergraduate degree. Then of course you have the people who have graduated and have all the time in the world to just dedicate their lives to being a titleholder.
I know that some people have negative perceptions of pageants. What insight do you have that could adjust these perceptions of others?
I think my experience, coming across these people is just talking to people about what Miss America means. I remember, just a few weeks ago, I was just sitting on the shuttle coming back and forth between campus and panther village, and there was a young lady who was sitting next to me, and she was inquiring about competing in Miss America. And she just said, “Well, don’t you think it’s really degrading of you to go on stage in a swimsuit and be judged on your body?” and I said, “No, I don’t. I actually find it very empowering.” I have worked very hard on my body, and there has been a lot of personal battles just getting to where I feel comfortable in my own skin. I just don’t understand why we’re in a day and age where everybody is trying to have an open mind about everything and trying to be accepting of everybody, and I just don’t understand why people can’t compete in Miss America to earn scholarship money, to potentially get jobs and make connections, to wear a swimsuit, who cares? Once I actually educate them on the purpose of Miss America and the types of girls that come out to the Miss America program, they suddenly see.
What are your career goals?
I know that I want to work for the Disney Company my entire life. So now that I have my foot in the door, even though it’s just a very minor role, I do hope to work for ABC or ESPN one day in some occupation. Or working for the parks in corporate, doing something with communication. But, obviously the dream would be to be the CEO of Disney. People always tell me “Natalie, how do you plan to do that? You’re not a business major. You’ve never taken a business class in your life.” The current CEO, Bob Iger, was kind of in the same boat as me. He started working as a weatherman for ABC and just found his way to work his talents in the department he was in, and Disney liked that. Disney is very much in the mentality that so long as you can figure out what you’re doing and put in the work, then you’re right for the job, and they’ll award it to you.