TU students crowned in International pageants
Katie Gruetzner, News Editor
photo: Katie Gruetzner / Collegian
Two University of Tulsa graduate students were crowned in the Tulsa level of competition for the Miss and Mrs. International pageants.
Janitha Jendrzey, a graduate student in clinical psychology, and Sasha Townsend, a graduate student in applied math, were named Miss and Mrs. Tulsa International, respectively.
“The defining thing about the International organization pageants is that they don’t just have Teen and Miss competitions but also the Mrs. competition for married women,” said Townsend. “They recognize that there are lots of great women out there who are married.”
Husbands also participate, escorting their wives in the evening gown portion of the competition, and the winner’s husband crowns his wife titleholder, according to www.mrsinternational.com.
There are no height and weight requirements for the Oklahoma International pageants.
“Your score consists of 50 percent interview, 25 percent fitness wear, and 25 percent evening wear. On-stage questions count as much as interview,” said Jendrzey.
“The International organization is also more focused on community service. Miss America has lots of talent, and that’s good, but we don’t have to have performed talent. We also don’t wear swimsuits — we have a “fitness wear” category. They’re interested in us being fit but we don’t have to put it all out there,” said Townsend.
In addition, each candidate must present a community service platform issue to the judges in the interview portion of the competition.
“The winner gets to promote her platform during her year of service. You have to convince judges that you have a mission and a vision and will do something with your year. They want people with concrete goals and action plans,” said Jendrzey.
One of Jendrzey’s class assignments combined with a life-long interest in child development to provide her platform issue.
“I lived in south Texas, and my mother was a kindergarten teacher. I volunteered in the classroom and noticed a trend with low socio-economic students — often they come from teen pregnancies or other situations where the parents just don’t know what to do with the kids and then the kid is five years old and the teachers have to deal with them and try to help them,” said Jendrzey.
“Professor (Teri) Bourdeau was my child development professor and we had to do a project where basically we developed a tool that would aid in human development. So I created a picture-book style manual for physical, emotional and cognitive development,” said Jendrzey.
“A lot of these people having children barely finished high school; they don’t want to read a whole manual, so this is a simple, picture-book style one. I’m hoping if I win to print it and provide it free. It covers pre-natal to three years old but I’m trying to stretch it all the way to kindergarten age.”
Townsend hopes to use her title to advocate support for children of divorce.
“If I win the title for Mrs. Oklahoma I hope to implement the Banana Split program for children of divorce,” said Townsend.
“It’s very popular in New York public schools. The kids meet once a week and do crafts, read books related to divorce, that sort of thing. It helps them to know they’re not alone. They always have questions: How do I handle holidays? How do I handle it when my parents put me in the middle? What do I do when I’m sad and angry about this and can’t go to my parents and don’t feel comfortable talking with my friends? It gives them someone to talk to, a place they can get the support they need.
I’ve been trying to implement it in Tulsa Public Schools and in Sapulpa Public Schools. They’ve been interested but when it comes down to doing the work there’s a sort of block. Hopefully if I have a crown, people will listen more,” said Townsend.
“I’ve seen these kids but was never allowed to do something about it. They always told me, you’re not a counselor, you don’t have the training. I almost continued pursuing psychology but decided to stick with math for graduate school, but through the pageant I can still help,” said Townsend.
Jendrzey and Townsend will go on to compete for the Miss and Mrs. Oklahoma International crowns next month in Stillwater. If they are successful there, they will continue to Chicago in July in hopes of being crowned Miss and Mrs. International.
“The pageant includes representatives from all fifty states and then many foreign countries. So you’ll have Mrs. Florida and Mrs. Oklahoma next to Mrs. Germany and Mrs. Spain. It’s a great opportunity to meet goal-oriented, community-service minded women from all over the world. It would be interesting just to go — I don’t have to win, I just want to go,” said Townsend.
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