Miss America is not a perfect woman, says Miss America. It's not required. Her job is to be a booster for the USA. She must be willing to travel 29 days a month, and be dedicated, charming and enthusiastic - but not necessarily perfect.
Carolyn Sapp, 25, crosses the country interpreting the American values of success through hard work and education. Every Miss America chooses a platform, she says. Education is hers.The staff of the Miss America pageant plans her tours. She serves on White House committees and visits schools and civic organizations - trying to build a coalition of lawmakers, parents and educators.
Her messages are brief and sound-bite simple. But Sapp believes she's making a difference in people's lives.
"I was just in Grand Rapids, Mich., talking to elementary school kids about why they should read during the summer," Sapp says. "I came down off the stage and about 30 little kids came up for a hug." Sapp told one boy she liked his smile. She complimented another little girl who likes to read. Because she represents the fulfillment of a great dream, Sapp believes, just a word from Miss America can encourage a child to fulfill his or her own dreams.
At a high school in Brooklyn, Sapp sat talking to 100 inner-city teens. "Tell me what worries you," she asked. A 17-year-old girl said her 29-year-old mother is addicted to cocaine, and the care of the younger children falls to her.
"Then you have to be the best role model you can for them," Sapp told her. "And I got her excited about doing it."
She sees herself as an icon of sorts. Miss America has a following among children, adolescent girls, men of all ages - and women of all ages, too, Sapp says. "In North Carolina, this grandma came up to me, she was in tears, and she said, `In my lifetime I thought I would never meet a Miss America.' "
Sapp, a former Miss Hawaii from Honolulu, wascrowned Miss America last September amid news reports that she once took out a restraining order against her former boyfriend. He was a fullback for the National Football League who "beat, kicked, punched and threatened to kill her."
She was quoted as being "disappointed" to have the story of their break-up become public knowledge.
Sapp is now comfortable talking about a less-than-perfect time in her life. She hopes her experience will help others search and find "something from within" to give them the strength to walk away - from violent relationships or from addictions to drugs or alcohol.
Carolyn Sapp has a warm and sincere answer for every question she's asked, only becoming annoyed at questions about beauty pageants. "The Miss America pageant is not a beauty contest. I won because of talent and interviews." Other pageants are beauty contests, she says, and they are fine for women who want to launch a career in modeling. But for herself, she entered because of the $35,000 college scholarship.
When she returns to the University of Hawaii, she'll be majoring in political science. Sapp hopes to become an ambassador.
Accompanied by an older female traveling companion, Sapp visits several states every week. Laeille Ross, who was with Sapp in Salt Lake City, has been a Miss America traveling companion for 15 years. She only works every other month, alternating with another companion, because the schedule is so exhausting.
Ross advises Miss Americas not to get too frustrated by lack of time in any one city. "I tell them to buy lots of postcards. And I tell them they can come back and visit again on their honeymoon."
In traveling around talking about what's right with America, Miss America can't help but observe what's wrong as well. She's not perfect and neither is the country she represents, she's learning.
At the same Brooklyn high school where she advised the daughter of a cocaine addict, Sapp says, students go through a metal detector as they enter the school. Earlier this spring, two boys were shot across the street from the school. And while she was visiting with them the youngsters told her, "You are the first white face we've seen in this school for two weeks, ever since the shooting."
In Utah a few days later and several thousand miles away, Miss America is still thinking about the Brooklyn school - and about what it means to be an American.
She says, "Shame on our country for not helping these children."