In the past year and a half, Madeleine Arnold has made almost 100 friends. She added it up.
About 50 of those friends could have come from her two-week trip to Mobile, Alabama, where she represented Utah in the Distinguished Young Women national finals competition this summer.
The 18-year-old from Highland and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was named the first runner-up in the competition. During her time participating in local, state and national competitions, she has enjoyed meeting the other girls.
“It really is like a sisterhood,” Arnold said in an interview with the Deseret News. “I really cherish those relationships with those girls."
The Distinguished Young Women program is a scholarship program, Arnold said. It promotes developing talents, learning life skills, building confidence and giving service.
The young women who participate are judged in five categories: scholastics (25 percent); a 10-minute interview (25 percent); an onstage fitness routine during the competition (15 percent); a talent performed during the competition (20 percent); and self-expression by answering a question onstage (15 percent).
The Distinguished Young Women program encourages girls to “be their best selves” — which is the outreach program, said Arnold, whose talent is piano performance.
To “be your best self,” she said, is to “take who you are and embrace who you are and what makes you special and then build on it. Be confident in who you are and then always be trying to become better.”
Arnold likes the Distinguished Young Women program because it focuses on self-improvement, not perfection.
“You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to give the most perfect answers, the most perfect performance, but it’s about progress,” she said.
Distinguished Young Women also puts a heavy emphasis on service, Arnold said. Giving service was one of her favorite parts of the program.
“The reason that we develop ourselves and all these talents and skills is so that we can then look outward,” she said. “That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned.”
The program also required participates to step out of their comfort zones often, Arnold said: “But I think that in doing so, it expands your comfort zone," she said.
At first, interviews and public speaking made her nervous, but after practice, now Arnold said she feels more confident.
“Having the gospel in my life gives my perspective and purpose,” she said. “That gave me a lot of confidence and peace going in.”
She said many of the other competitors were strong in their faiths as well.
“It was kind of a neat experience to see lots of different faiths come together but to share the common belief in God,” she said, adding that the group prayed before each performance.
During her two weeks in Alabama, she was staying with a host family and didn’t have much contact with her own, so she often turned to God.
“I prayed more than I probably ever have,” she said.
In the local, state and national competitions, Arnold won a total of $30,000 in scholarship money. This fall, she will be starting at Brigham Young University studying biology and she hopes to serve an LDS mission and attend medical school.
See distinguishedyw.org for contact information for the local chapter and more about the program.