By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Two Del Rio teens will travel to Houston this week to compete in the annual Miss Texas USA and Miss Texas Teen USA pageants.
The Miss Texas USA competition will be Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. The Miss Texas Teen USA competition will be Saturday at 3 p.m., with the final show at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Del Rioans can watch the live stream of the events on www.pageantvision.com
The contestants who will be representing Val Verde County are Miss Val Verde Texas USA Alyssa Sanchez, 18, and Miss Val Verde Texas Teen USA Amaris Leon, 16.
Sanchez attends Texas A&M University and plans to become a family lawyer or an accident/personal injury lawyer. She is the daughter of Angie and Gilbert Sanchez.
She told the 830 Times her hobbies include dancing, fitness training and “helping my community in any way that I can.”
Sanchez said she was “never one for pageants” when she was younger, but added, “In my senior year in high school, I decided to do something completely out of my comfort zone and try to get away from the barrier that anxiety had over me, so I decided to do a pageant, and I did my first pageant in October and then the Miss Val Verde USA Pageant in February.”
“Being in those pageants definitely helped me to open up, and there’s a lot of opportunities to talk to people face-to-face and in large groups, and it overall strengthens your public speaking skills and really helped me become confident in myself. I can say I’ve really grown because of it,” she added.
Sanchez is a mental health advocate and said she wants to further awareness of mental health issues in the community. She also started a charity event for donations of clothing to local schools.
Leon will be a junior in the Del Rio Early College High School in the fall. She is the daughter of Brandy and Sergio Leon.
Leon said her favorite hobbies are track and mariachi, in which she is a violinist and vocalist, and volunteering.
Leon said she has wanted to compete in pageants from a very young age.
“I loved getting in my mom’s high heels and playing with makeup and dresses. I have memories of my aunt doing these little music videos of us all dressed up, so getting dressed up and being onstage is always something that I’ve enjoyed,” Leon said.
She said her mother encouraged her to compete in the local pageant.
Leon said although she is nervous, she is looking forward to competing on the state stage.
Leon said her goal in life is to end world hunger and to that end she started a food pantry at the seventh and eighth grade campus in Del Rio.
“I’m currently working on one at the high school and at the early college high school. It’s been great to work with the principals and all the people in the school district,” she said, adding the pantry’s aim is to allow students to take home food for the weekends when they aren’t able to access meals in the schools.
Leon said she hopes to attend Texas A&M University after high school and to study engineering and intellectual property law.
Edward Guerrero, director of the Miss Val Verde USA Pageant, said the two young women were crowned in February and have been preparing for months to compete at the state level.
“Preparation involves interview skills, polishing their runway walks and wardrobes, making sure their wardrobes are spot-on, but overall their confidence, helping them really step out of their shells,” Guerrero said.
“When they compete in my pageant, it’s peeling off one layer, and with this state pageant, it really peels off a lot more layers,” he added.
Guerrero has directed the local Miss USA organization pageant for the past two years, but has been involved in pageants in the area for 12 years.
He said the biggest challenge for young women moving from local to state pageants and even national-level events is imagination.
“It would be having them imagine that they’re walking on the Miss USA stage, imagining that every pageant that they do is the only pageant that they’re ever going to do. When they go to even the state level, they’ll be competing against girls who have been doing this year after year after year, girls who have been first runners-up out of 130 contestants, so it’s getting that mentality, that they can be up there, even though it’s their first year there,” Guerrero said.
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