Miss America – the annual pageant that showcases the talents and beauty of women from across the country. Every contestant struts across the stage and shows off their qualities in the hopes of being crowned Miss America. The only difference between contestant Miss Colorado, Kelley Johnson, and the rest of the competition, however, is how she represented her beauty.
22-year-old Kelley Johnson decided to step out of the norm of pageantry talents at the Miss America 2016 Pageant on September 13, 2015. Instead of twirling a baton on fire or singing a love ballad, Johnson delivered a monologue.
Johnson delivered a compelling, 90-second piece that told the story of a patient suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s, Joe. In the monologue, Johnson discussed her relationship with Joe: late nights and long talks about miscellaneous things of life, and Joe’s many requests that she could not fulfill because she was “just a nurse.”
One night, Johnson found Joe crying and cradling his head in his hands. She went up to Joe and told him, “Joe, I know that this is really hard, but you are not defined by this disease. You are not just Alzheimer’s. You are still Joe.”
Johnson recalled how Joe looked at her in the eyes and said, “Nurse Kelley, then the same goes for you. Although you say it all the time, you are not just a nurse. You are my nurse, and you have changed my life because you have cared about me.”
That was the moment the Miss America contestant realized that she was not “just a nurse”. She is a lifesaver.
“Patients are real people with family and friends. You are not just a room number and a diagnosis when you are in the hospital, you are a person, very first.”
How does any of this relate to Baylor, and more specifically BIC, students? Allow me to make the parallel.
Johnson defied the norm of pageantry and made her voice prevalent among the 50 other contestants. She was not “just” a Miss America contestant. She was a lifesaver.
Similarly, in college, we are challenged to think outside of the box and “find ourselves” amongst the 13,000 plus students here at Baylor. We are asked to determine our futures and declare a major. We believe our GPAs and honors programs define us. We are all looking for a future.
With thousands of students passing us by everyday, everyone seems to be on the same journey to find the future. There are advisors guiding us in one direction. There are parents who push us onto the pre-law tract and do not support a degree in philosophy because it is not “practical”. Everyone seems to have a plan for us and our future when at the end of the day, we just want our voices to be heard.
It is easy for a college student to get lost in the void, but we must remember that we are not just students. We are leaders, athletes, advocates, and the list goes on. Most importantly, we are people, very first. The future is ours to pursue and we all have a voice, it just needs to be heard.
Additionally, just as Joe is not defined by his condition, our valleys do not define us. We may receive less than satisfactory exam grades or a few bad quizzes, but those do not define us as students. We are still people. Although our GPAs seem like the entire world right now, in actuality we are so much more.
Although I am a freshman, I have already questioned my capabilities as a student. I then remember that I am not just a student, but a person. Just like Joe, I have my own Nurse Kelley – that is my BIC community. My professors and peers care about me, and that has transformed my experiences here at Baylor.
While college has its challenges, we are never defined by anything but ourselves. Every student has an individual story and an even more unique calling. Just as Kelley Johnson found her calling as a nurse, we will find ours.
For more information on Miss Colorado’s monologue, go to:
Kassie Hsu is a freshman BIC student majoring in neuroscience.
This is an amazing statement made by a freshman in college. She seems to get it much sooner than most people do.