Smith is fulfilling her dream. The Wichita native says she was born into a pageant family.
"My mom did pageants, my aunt did pageants and the same organization that they grew up in is the organization that I started at a very young age, and a lot of the young women that are in that organization also end up transitioning into the Miss America program.
Smith has won several competitions including Miss Wichita, Miss Manhattan and Miss Butler which in turn led her to win Miss Kansas. But before the crown was carefully placed on her head, she responded to an emcee's question about her vision to eliminate unhealthy and abusive relationships.
Video of her response went viral and was picked up by multiple media outlets, including ABC's "Good Morning America."
"The outreach was absolutely unreal, absolutely incredible. And to just really be able to connect with others about this given situation and have them express things that they would love to see me do as Miss Kansas, it's completely the reason why I want to utilize this platform to be able to advocate for victims of domestic violence."
Smith speaks at events touting her community service initiative.
"It's called 'Respect Reclaimed: Advocating for Healthy Relationships.' It's created stemming from my own personal cycle of falling into a domestic, violent relationship. I tell everyone, I've been a bystander to domestic violence within my own family, my own friends and community. I've been the survivor of domestic violence, and now I have the incredible opportunity to be an advocate."
Statistics show it typically takes victims seven attempts to leave an abuser. Smith says her experience was long-lasting, starting in high school and continuing in college.
"I experienced emotional and psychological abuse for a very long time, and it was recognizing that I was losing control over my own personal emotions, trying to save the emotions of someone else, and so to be able to save myself. I recognize that we don't want to both go down together. I need to be able to leave this relationship. That way, I'm able to pursue a future, because you just never know what can happen to your partner or happen to yourself when you're in those relationships."
A future that includes a career in nursing and competing in the Miss America pageant with 51 other contestants in January. And Smith isn't the only one making changes. In 2019, the Miss Kansas pageant replaced the swimsuit competition with an emphasis on fitness.
"What I love about it, especially as a cardiothoracic ICU nurse, is that we partner with the American Heart Association to promote that fitness. It is about your cardiovascular health, and what you are doing, what you're implementing in your daily life and your daily routine, to be as healthy as possible, and to promote being a healthy individual."
For the talent competition, Smith plans to show off her skills as a ventriloquist with her puppets on stage.
"I bought two new ones last year, Aaliyah and Alan, and so I'm taking them on my journey as much as possible to not only entertain others, but also be able to spread my community service initiative with our youth groups that need to learn about healthy relationships in all facets of life, whether that's at school, whether that's at home or in the community."
And how does she prepare for the Miss America pageant?
"The best way to prepare for Miss America is to play [the] role of Miss America, and that is by being the best state title holder that you can be. By placing myself in communities, and being able to connect and learn how to communicate with others in multiple demographics, is going to make me a great candidate. Also, I'll be be working on mock interviews and spending time with survivors of domestic violence to educate myself on prevention in communities."
And the interest in her personal story keeps growing. Smith is receiving several requests from all over the country to speak and share her story.
"I have many different states that want to book Miss Kansas and talk about my story and talk about the preventative education that's needed ... not only, of course, in the state of Kansas, but across our great nation and honestly, across the world. So, I'm very excited to be able to have these opportunities to travel and serve our nation."
Smith says the way she heals is by expressing what she's learned and providing preventative education before people fall into a cycle of abuse.
"I see my story reflected whenever I'm talking to teenagers. And you know, it's hard for me. It's a healing process, but to be able to provide that prevention from somebody else experiencing what I've been through, to be able to have that opportunity is everything."
