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N.C. native finds success in pageantry
UNCSA along path to crown
Journal photo by Traci White
Kendria Perry cuts the first slice of cake during the reception for her at First Baptist Church in Lewisville.
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Published: September 1, 2008
When Kendria Perry was five years old, her parents took her to a movie and then stopped at a store in Raleigh on the way home and bought her a toy keyboard.
They were surprised that, when Perry began playing with the toy keyboard, she could play songs from the movie that they had just seen.
Perry's skill on the piano has propelled her from Raleigh to the UNC School of the Arts, to the Miss Forsyth County pageant and then on to Carnegie Mellon University.
In July, Perry, 24, won the Miss Pennsylvania pageant, which means she will represent that state at the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas in January.
She was in town yesterday for a reception at Lewisville Baptist Church. Friends, family and people involved with the Miss Forsyth County pageant turned out to greet her.
Perry is currently working on a master's degree in arts management at Carnegie Mellon.
She said that Winston-Salem will always be special because of her experiences in the local pageant and at the School of the Arts, from which she graduated in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in music.
"I needed a way to express myself," she said of her years at the school. "It wasn't going to be through sports. I found a community of artists."
She left for Pittsburgh in June 2007, thinking that her beauty-pageant days were behind her, she said. She had been Miss Forsyth County in 2004.
But when she got to the school, she realized that her $40,000 scholarship was not going to cover all of her school costs.
And, at 24, this was the last year that she would be eligible to participate in the Miss America pageant.
"I thought, ‘This is my last shot.' I didn't want to look back and wish I had tried this one more time," she said.
Two weeks before the tryouts for Miss Armstrong County, she decided to try out for the pageant.
"I took a cab with all my gowns and a big keyboard in back to the pageant," she said.
When she got there, she found that the other contestants were surrounded by family and friends. She was alone.
"Sometimes it's not who had the greatest set of advantages," she said. "It's the one who steps out there and is willing to try."
Perry said she plans to focus on arts in education as her platform during her time as Miss Pennsylvania.
She would eventually like to run a museum or a symphony, she said.
Lois Redding, who is the business manager for the Miss Forsyth County pageant, said that Perry would be a strong candidate for Miss America because of her intelligence, piano talent and her good-natured personality.
Dennis Jacobs, who serves as the executive director of the Miss Forsyth County pageant, said that Perry fits in with the image that Miss America pageant officials have been trying to project.
"They want young women to be out in the public," he said, "not just a beauty queen."
■ Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com.
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