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PrintHail to the queens
From their pre-pageant routines to day-of mishaps to advice for aspiring contestants, local pageant winners tell all.
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DaLonna Hanlin
Mrs. Tulsa International
Hanlin won the Mrs. Tulsa International 2011 title at her second pageant in March 2010. A singer, she began competing in pageants in September 2008.
Why do you enjoy being involved in pageants?
Pageants give you an opportunity to raise your voice on behalf of your platform.
What is your platform and do you hope to promote it as Mrs. Tulsa International?
I’ve been promoting my platform: raising the awareness of sexual abuse and assault. This platform is close to my heart because I’m a survivor of sexual abuse.
What are your goals?
I will continue to volunteer for several nonprofit organizations to help victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Everyone deserves a second chance at life. I want to help women and children to gain their confidence back, help them find jobs, teach them how to budget, how to cook, provide for their children but, most of all, how to respect themselves through a new nonprofit foundation, “Hearts of Confidence.”
What is your pre-pageant routine?
Creating a website, attending events, writing articles, modeling, speaking at schools, speaking at churches but yet still finding the time to be with my family and play with my kids.
What’s the history behind the Mrs. Tulsa International pageant?
The Mrs. International system has established itself as an organization with high ethical standards. It is their goal to provide married women an opportunity to compete in a system that maintains the highest moral values.
What ran through your head when you were crowned?
Excitement!
What’s the hardest part about competing in pageants?
I would say the hardest part is the interview with the judges. It counts for 50 percent of your overall score and can either make you or break you. I will have an interview with at least five judges and will not know ahead of time what they will be asking.
What has been your biggest accomplishment?
Other than bringing my children into this world, my biggest accomplishment is helping several women and children to become survivors of abuse like me.
What advice would you share with aspiring beauty queens?
Be humble, be real and stay true to yourself.
Anything more you’d like to share?
I may have a lot on my “to do” list, but I’m willing to help people that have been placed into my life. That means not only my friends and family but people who I meet each day. I want to make a difference — one day at a time, one step at a time and one person at a time. If everyone would live by these principles, what a difference we can all make in our community.
