Opportunity of a lifetime

Greybull woman and Riverside grad reflects on Miss America experience

Baylee Drewry woke up Tuesday morning beaming with pride, but also physically and mentally exhausted after two weeks of competing in the Miss America Pageant in Orlando, Fla.

The daughter of Scott and Brandi Drewry had just arrived home in in Laramie, where three weeks ago, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree, and where she is now getting ready to start the next phase of her life now that the pageant is behind her. 

That phase will include coaching girls’ wrestling at Laramie High School as well as two girls’ softball teams, prepping for her Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and training to be a pilot for the Wyoming Civil Air Patrol.

As she reflected on her two weeks in Orlando, Baylee, also known as Miss Wyoming, said she’s proud of herself and has no regrets.   “You’re only allowed to do it once,” she said. “I’ll never be able to step on the Miss America stage again.”

Fifty-two talented women — one from each state, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia — arrived in Orlando dreams of wearing the Miss America crown. 

In the end, only one would: Miss Alabama Abbie Stockard.

Baylee was not among the 10 finalists, which had been her goal going in. “To have won Miss America would have been a great honor,” she said. “But all of us girls were talking about how it was so much harder to win the state competition. We really had to put in the work.

“So by the time we got to Miss America, it was cream of the crop girls.  Any one of them could have been picked, I could have been picked, all for different reasons. What it came down to was, what were the judges looking for?”

Realizing that it was outside of her control made it easier to relax and enjoy the experience. “You figure if it’s meant to be, it will be,” she said. “If not, there’s nothing you can do about it, so why worry about it?”

On the first day in Orlando, Baylee and the other contestants competed in the 10-minute interview phase of the competition.  Baylee felt it went well, describing it as more of a conversation than the one she went through at the state level, where “it felt like they were grilling you to see if you could handle the pressure.”

She described a rigorous 10 day stretch of late nights and early mornings as the ladies competed and fulfilled their obligations. “We all ran off about three to four hours a sleep a night for 10 days straight,” she said. “But it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we had to go with the flow.”

The next day brought the preliminary show — the fitness, evening gown and on-stage question phases of the competition — followed the day after by the talent portion, which was called Miss America’s Got Talent.

Baylee chose to do a Her Story, focusing on her path to becoming a girls’ wrestling coach and her desire to inspire the next generation of female athletes.

Judges gave the interview portion the most weight, accounting for 40% of each contestant’s final score. “I felt like I had a good interview, but again, it was what were they looking for. At the beginning of the process of going to Miss America, there’s the pageant-perfect girl you can be, or you can be the girl who is true to herself. Sometimes it can be a toss-up. Last year, judges chose a true-to-self woman, Madison Marsh.  This year, they picked the pageant-perfect, the well-rounded, when you walk into a room who you think Miss America is. 

“I knew I gave a very wholesome, very me, not pageant-perfect interview and I was happy with that. Ultimately, if I’d have given a pageant-perfect interview and they’d have picked me to be to be Miss America, I wouldn’t have been that.”

She said she is content knowing that she gave it her all, adding, “I’ve never gotten pageant videos back where I would look at them and be proud. I’m usually very harsh on myself and there’s usually something I don’t like - my hair, my makeup, that sort of thing.  But this time, I cried. I was proud of myself. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.  The most important part of being in a pageant is going out and showing your heart.  Only 11 girls could make finals (10 finalists, plus  people’s choice) and only one could be Miss America.”

While she will never get to compete for Miss America again, Baylee says she isn’t prepared to say she’s completely done with pageant life.  You never know, she said.  But for now, the focus is on law school and her other pursuits.

“As I walked off the stage, after the winner was crowned, I really wasn’t sorry I lost. I was sad the experience was over,” she said. “As I walked away, Carl Lewis (one of the judges) came up to me and said, ‘Can you message me when you get home? I’d like to talk to you about a speaking opportunity.’ So that was amazing.  I keep on walking, I’m on Cloud 9, and I hear, ‘Hey Miss Wyoming.’  It’s Nikki Sixx (co-founder, bassist and primary songwriter) of Motley Crue, asking to take a picture with me.  I say ‘Of course, Nikki Sixx, you can get a picture, but why are you asking me?’ They wanted to talk with me about a partnership.  

“So even though I didn’t make the top 10 or win Miss America, I still left the stage with more connections and possibilities than anyone could every know.”