I wrote a blog post (linked here) for a class assignment a few years ago on how I’ve lost far more pageants than I’ve ever won and what all I’ve learned from that journey. That original post was written right after I won Miss DeSoto Heritage 2017, so it ended on a high note. Recently, for a different class assignment, we had to write a personal story as a book. I loved My Story of Losing so much I decided to use it. However, the story had more to it in the 2 years since I’d written the original. So here for everyone’s pleasure, is the updated version of My Story of Losing. Enjoy!

I’m a winner when it comes to losing.

Really, it has to be some sort of record or something. Since I was seven years old, I’ve competed in 26 pageants (all completely on my own will. I was born for the stage). Of those 26 pageants, I placed in the top 5 six times and took home the crown three times.

So as you can gather, I have far more experience losing than I do winning.

Seven-year-old Sammy didn’t care about winning. She was perfectly content getting to walk on stage in a pretty dress and little heels as her family whooped and hollered from the audience.

I competed in the Miss Manatee County Fair pageant every year from the age of 7 to 16. There were three years I took home a runner up trophy, but I didn’t win a single time and that was completely fine by me.

It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I started caring about whether or not I won the pageants I competed in. For that one year, the fair pageant changed. Instead of just winning fair queen and holding the title for a year, whoever won the Teen and Miss categories would now go on to compete at the Miss Florida and Miss Florida’s Outstanding Teen competitions. If you win Miss Florida, the next step is Miss America, so this was a huge deal.

I was a runner up that year and missed my chance – my chance to compete at Miss Florida’s Outstanding Teen. It fueled me with the desire to find another pageant to win that would advance me to the state level.

The next month, I found that chance and competed for the title of Miss Southwest Florida’s Outstanding Teen 2014 – and I won!

Still, like I said before, I have a history of losing, so when I competed at Miss Florida’s Outstanding Teen that year, I didn’t expect to win or even place in the top ten. I was glad I set the bar low from the start because I neither won nor placed.

Really though, I was just thrilled to have a chance to compete at such a large level. I was ecstatic for each girl who made the top 10 and for Michaela McLean, who won Miss Florida’s Outstanding Teen that year.

The experience of competing at the state level made me realize I wanted to be back on that stage the next year. The only difference would be that I was aging out of the Teen category and would be competing as a Miss the following pageant season, but really how much harder could it be?

I didn’t realize then that it would take ten local pageants and over two years to finally win again.

My senior year of high school was my first year competing as a Miss contestant and it was rough to say the least. My first few pageants I piled pounds of bronzer on my face and posed awkwardly in a swimsuit and heels for the first time. It was an entirely different ballgame than competing as a Teen.

I figured since I won as a Teen the year before, it couldn’t be too much harder to win a Miss title…boy was I wrong.
Although I did not make it to Miss Florida that year, I learned more about myself and pageantry in those five local pageants than I ever would have expected.

Every pageant, my mom would take pictures and videos and the morning after the pageant I would analyze them. I would pinpoint what I did right and what I needed to change.

I never had a pageant coach and my mom is the farthest thing from a pageant mom you might see miming my talent from the audience and shouting for me to “Smile baby!” She’s more of the nature type who is much happier pitching a tent than walking in heels. All the improvements and changes I made were based off what I saw in myself that could be better.

Not once did I compare myself to the girl who took home the title I wanted so badly. I understood that there is not a specific cookie-cutter girl the judges are looking for. A common phrase among us losers in pageant world is, “Different day, different judges.” We all know a different set of judges could have produced an entirely different outcome.

I wasn’t too upset over not winning a local pageant that year because I knew I was now equipped with the knowledge and experience to take home a title the following year. Despite the fact that I kept losing, I stayed confident. The next year, I came back ready to win, but now I understood it wasn’t going to be easy.

A few pageants in to the new season, I couldn’t figure out why I still wasn’t winning; I couldn’t even place as a runner up. I changed my talent routine three times over the course of five local pageants that season and I greatly believe that was one of the biggest contributions to my eventual success.

The most difficult part of my second year competing as a Miss contestant was when I placed first runner up at what I thought would be my last local pageant of the season. That may sound strange. I should have been overjoyed to place so well. That was the highest I’ve ever placed at a Miss Florida local pageant, but hear me out.

I thought this was going to be the pageant – the pageant I was so confident in that I would take home the crown. It was my fourth pageant of the season and I wasn’t planning on competing in any more if I didn’t win…until that actually happened. I was so, so close to finally achieving my long-awaited dream of competing at Miss Florida. I was so close, but not close enough. That’s not an easy pill to swallow.

Yet, I never got upset or beat myself up over it. I just kept telling my mom, “I know I can win. I just need one more chance.”

So I withdrew from my dance company’s spring showcase, which was the same day as the last pageant of the season, in order to give myself “one more chance” and, somehow, it worked.

A line of girls stood holding sweaty hands as the winner was about to be called at the last pageant of the season. We all knew this was our last shot to compete at Miss Florida that year. It was all or nothing. The tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

And then I heard it. My name called as the winner.

With tears streaming down my face, I walked to the front of the stage to be adorned with my first crown and sash as a Miss contestant at 18 years old, still not sure if it was real life.

I had just won Miss Central Florida 2016 and I could not be more euphoric that my “one more chance” actually paid off.

That summer, I took on Miss Florida with the same attitude I had as a Teen at Miss Florida’s Outstanding Teen. I didn’t care about the outcome, I just wanted to do my best and be grateful for the opportunity to be there. I won the Miss Florida Marketing Award and scholarship that year and that was more than I could have ever hoped for.

When the next pageant season rolled around the following year, I prepared myself to compete in at least four local pageants, since my losing streak was pretty consistent. Given my record, I knew the odds of it being one and done were slim. I submitted my paperwork for my second local pageant before I even competed in the first one because I just assumed it would take me more than one shot to win.

I never thought I would be able to win my first local pageant of the year, but I did. Better yet, I won in Manatee County as Miss DeSoto Heritage 2017. The happy tears started when my name was announced as the winner and they didn’t stop the rest of the night.

I was 100 times more shocked when my name was called at that pageant than when I won Miss Central Florida the year before. Never in a million years did I expect to win that night.

When I performed my talent, I forgot the entire routine about 30 seconds in and completely made the rest of it up on the spot. I had a text from my mom waiting for me backstage after talent that said, “What the heck was that?” In that moment, I thought I’d just lost the pageant for myself. But of course, to anyone who didn’t know my routine inside and out like my mom did, I gave a flawless performance.

Having won so early in the pageant season, I was able to make more of an impact making a total of 42 appearances throughout my community during my yearlong reign. You can bet I didn’t take a single second of it for granted.

In a perfect world, that’s how it would have ended – on a high note. But we don’t live in a perfect world. I’m sure you’ve gathered at this point that I’m a pretty stubborn person. If I want something badly enough, I don’t tend to give up on it too easily.

As I mentioned earlier, I competed in the Manatee County Fair Pageant every year for close to a decade and didn’t win once. Now having the confidence of winning multiple Miss Florida local pageants, I thought there would be no way I would lose this time. After all, I had way more pageant experience than all the other contestants combined – and that’s not me being cocky, it’s just the truth.

I have never been more nervous for a pageant than I was when I returned to compete for fair queen – this time with my sights set on winning. It seems ridiculous, but I was so nervous to compete for the title of fair queen in the Palmetto High School auditorium, yet not a single butterfly was in my stomach either time I competed for Miss Florida at the grand Lakeland Theater. The difference now was that everyone knew I was the only “pageant person” competing. How would it looks if I lost again? I felt so much pressure to prove myself.

That night, I gave the performance of my life. Backstage, I was getting texts from my family and friends in the audience saying, “You got this!,” “You’re killing it!” Just before we walked on stage for crowning, the reigning fair queen whispered to me, “There’s no way you didn’t win.”

I walked on that stage ready to be crowned. And then my name was called as first runner up. I don’t know what happened. Even after going home and reviewing videos of myself and the other contestants, I still don’t know why I didn’t win. That was the hardest loss I’ve ever faced. It was the only time I’ve ever been upset after not winning.

I thought that was going to be the end of my pageant career…until the fair pageant rolled around the next year. I just couldn’t let it go. There’s that stubbornness again. I went in even more prepared this year.

I asked those who were at the previous year’s pageant what I could improve upon and I made some changes. I felt so ready. This was my year to finally, after 14 years, win Fair Queen.

And again, my name was called for first runner up.

This time, it was easier to accept. Maybe because I’d experienced the same thing the year before, maybe because I felt like the girl who won this year actually deserved the title. The only part that stung was that this time, it really was the last pageant I would ever compete in. There would be no more “one last chances.”

I wanted to go out with a bang – end with a win, but I didn’t. And that’s OK because what you learn when you’ve lost as many times as I have is that what five judges think about you on a certain night based on, at most, five minutes of stage time, doesn’t define you.

I’ve lost a lot, won a few times, and gained so much experience along the way. I am always a better version of myself after the pageant whether I win or lose because it’s the experience that makes all the difference.

Who knows, maybe now I’ll find another hobby to be bad at.