By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Between college classes and visiting events and festivals across Ohio as Miss Buckeye State, Kalli Gregory is preparing to compete for the 2024 Miss Ohio crown the week of June 9-15.
The Bowling Green State University senior neuroscience student is practicing “lots of walking in my high heels to make sure I don’t trip,” she admitted, and thinking through talking points for the pageant’s interview portion.
The 2024 Miss Ohio contest, a precursor to the Miss America pageant in January, is not her first competition. She found her way to the pageant stage as a high school senior. She wanted to continue her longtime devotion to dance and expand her advocacy for cerebral palsy awareness. She also knew scholarships would be important in her long educational journey to become a pediatric neurologist. Competing in pageants checked all those boxes for the Castalia, Ohio, native.
She was first runner-up in her first competition for the Castalia Cold Creek Queen. She went on to become Port Clinton, Ohio’s Firecracker Queen, runner-up a few times in the Marion Popcorn Festival, Miss Sparkle Nation, and Miss North Central Ohio last year before being crowned Miss Buckeye State most recently in March.
This year is her second year to compete in the Miss Ohio Contest. Last year, representing North Central Ohio, Gregory walked away with a new pair of shoes for having the best-decorated shoes in the “Show Me Your Shoes Parade,” along with a $1,200 scholarship and community service award for her work with Trent’s Triumphs Cerebral Palsy Advocacy to honor the life of her older brother, Trent.
She also earned the Caroline Grace Spirit Award, voted on by all the delegates to recognize “how you interact with the other contestants, and how you exemplify what the Miss Ohio program stands for,” Gregory said.
As Miss Buckeye State, she has traveled all over Ohio representing the Miss Ohio program and talking about Trent’s Triumphs wherever she goes. Cerebral palsy awareness has been her platform since she was a sixth grader when she started giving presentations to her class and friends who were curious about her older brother. “I would teach them, he is just like anyone else; he just moves a little bit differently,” she explained.
With over 18 million people living with cerebral palsy, it is considered the number one childhood motor disability, she said. From her sixth-grade presentations and a senior year palsy awareness night to the creation of Trent’s Triumphs and Kalli’s Creative Art Business to raise money for palsy research, Gregory admitted that cerebral palsy advocacy is a part of who she is.
It also is the platform she stands upon for all the pageants’ community service initiatives.
“My work with CP extends well before Miss Ohio, and I see this competition as another wonderful opportunity to reach even more people with my advocacy efforts,” Gregory said.
In addition to the community service initiative which includes an on-stage question about each contestant’s platform, the Miss Ohio competition includes a private interview with the judges, health and fitness, evening gown and talent.
For the talent portion, Gregory will reprise her dancing background with a tap dance to “Footloose,” that she choreographed herself.
Her goal for the interview, which goes at a speed-dating pace, is to help the judges learn who she is in all her authenticity. “I have known who I am since I was little,” thanks to growing up in a supportive household, she said. Her parents and brother “have been the force behind everything I do in life.”
Her world was shaken nine years ago when her father was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident. “I didn’t want to go to college after my dad died. I just wanted to shut down and do nothing,” Gregory recalled.
A gentle push by her mother and a reminder that college for Kalli was one of her dad’s dreams, was all she needed to pursue the dream of a college degree. “Having my dad’s legacy of kindness and his smile in the back of my head really propelled me forward.”
Gregory also realized she couldn’t give up on the journey she started as a sixth grader. “I can’t give up on myself or my family,” she said.
Unfortunately, the path was not a smooth one. The awful year of COVID was second only to the time she was helping care for her sick Nana at night and going to classes on 20 minutes of sleep. She pushed through and earned her associate degree from BGSU Firelands, which she calls “one of my proudest accomplishments.”
In the process, she learned a lesson that stuck: “I learned that you never know what someone is going through,” she said. No one knew that she was struggling, “but the kindness of others really helped get me through that time.
“I carry that with me all the time, in day-to-day and into the competition,” she said.
Winning the crown is her ultimate goal. “I wouldn’t be competing for it if I didn’t want to win,” she said.
However, in each competition, she has goals outside of the pageant “because the final decision is only the opinion of five people. At the end of the day, they only see me for 15 minutes of my life and base an opinion off that.”
Gregory will go into the Miss Ohio competition as she has in each previous contest by being her “most authentic self and being proud of what I put out there, whether its dancing or teaching people about those living with cerebral palsy,” she said. Earning scholarships and making new friends are also on her pageant goal list.
As part of the competition, contestants are eligible to win the Miss Ohio People’s Choice Award. Each dollar donated in support of the Miss Ohio Scholarship Program equals one vote. Voting for Kalli Gregory is available on this spotfund.com page.
Miss Ohio Week, June 9-15, kicks off with a parade on June 9 at 2 p.m. in Mansfield, Ohio, the host city. A list of events and activities is available on the Miss Ohio website. The first and second preliminary rounds are June 13-14 with the final event on Saturday, June 15 starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Renaissance Theatre.
