Miss Amazing Pageant, Swansea High School
Swansea, SC (WLTX) - What does it take to be an amazing young woman? How about showing the world that what they may think of you is wrong.
There's a pageant at Swansea High School where seven of the contestants have intellectual or physical disabilities, but they don't let a word like "disability" define them.
At first it may seem like the contestants getting ready for the Miss Amazing pageant are a bit shy, but when they took the stage, it was a while different story.
This year, the student council decided to add something special to their Miss Swansean pageant.
"When they started to organize the pageant this year," explained Beth Tuton, a special education teacher at Swansea High School, "they really wanted to include our students with intellectual disabilities. So they went to the pageant organizer and they came and pitched it to me and we loved it!"
The category is called Miss Amazing and that verb is exactly what Tuton says her students are.
"It is my joy to come to work everyday and work with them because they are awesome. They really are amazing."
For these girls and their families, it's about more than looking pretty.
"Our parents are thrilled to have this opportunity for their daughters and grand daughters," said Tuton. "To be able to be a part of something that's so typical to a teenager."
It's about the world seeing them for who they really are and showing these girls that they can do anything.
"For a lot of them this is a dream that they never even knew they could have."
The crowned winner of the Miss Amazing Pageant was Sandra Marie Evans. Swansea High School plans to keep the category in the pageant for years to come.