Luckily the ambassadors of South County do not need beauty sleep because the young ladies do not have time for it anyway.
Six cities, four classes and one full-time job-Miss South County, Dionna Anderson, a Southwestern College student, does not have a lot of time for small talk. The 20-year-old beauty queen has to play her schedule like a game of Tetris.
"I'm kind of like in a hurry a lot," Anderson said.
The SWC student who doubles as a queen also works 40 hours a week. A regular day involves jetting home from her job where she updates inventory for Pacific Honda of Kearny Mesa, jumping into her outfit and scuffling in her high heels back to her car to rush to an event.
She, along with three other SWC students, was crowned as a pageant winner in the Miss South County Scholarship Pageant. They are all beautiful, intelligent and in a hurry.
For a tumultuous year they will attend at least one event a week where they will pose for photographs with the county's most influential people. Other times they may have three or four events in a single day. There is no rhyme or reason for the locations of the events so the girls have to schedule their lives around them.
Brenda Cartmill, also known as Miss San Ysidro, said being an ambassador affects her everyday life.
"Everyday you wanna keep a good reputation. You may not remember the person you met, but they remember you," said Cartmill.
Unlike the others, Cartmill does not keep a planner anymore. She attributes her ability to manage her time well to her good memory and a handy cell phone. She says she always keeps in touch with the other girls to make sure she makes her events on time.
Before the fires, Cartmill kept a calendar, but her family had to evacuate from their home and she threw all her valuables into random boxes. She has yet to unpack her calendar.
Having a flexible job schedule does not hurt her either.
"I'm very fortunate that I'm not busy," Cartmill said. "I guess you could call it luck."
If she had a calendar, the lines would be crammed with commitments. The second weekend of November was stuffed with events. Not only did Cartmill go to a "mixer" with the Chula Vista City of Commerce, but she also attended a VIP dinner for the SR-125 opening, helped open the new Neighborhood Market in San Ysidro, and she and her heels clicked down the street with grace in the first holiday parade at the Otay Ranch Town Center.
Miss Chula Vista's car is pretty messy. Passengers in her white 2002 Toyota Rav-4 can see a disarray of sparkly evening shoes and old homework assignments at their feet.
Amanda Abad represents not only an entire city as Miss Chula Vista, but she also represents the SWC newspaper "The Sun" as co editor-in-chief and works as an Office Automation Clerk for the San Diego Sector of the United States Border Patrol
Her office is a blend of professional and personal. Three wall calendars share their space with pictures of Aaliyah.
Abad manages to balance out her duties as an ambassador and a student by forgoing her time.
"I sacrifice time with friends to get to the places where I need to be in the future," she said.
On the rare occasion she is able to hang out with her friends, she asks them to drive wherever they are going so she can sleep on the way.
"I sleep whenever I can," Abad sighed.
Sleep is a hot commodity to Abad. She gets four hours of sleep a night on average, she said. Late night hours are dedicated to homework and planning what she has to do the next day. Abad squeezes in as many scribbles as possible in her pastel colored Coach planner.
"It's really dirty, though, because I use it so much," Abad said.
She also has an overflow planner, which she uses when she is unable to fit everything in the first planner.
For Miss Bonita Vanessa Sandoval balancing time for her classes is like walking in one-inch pumps. All of her time management problems were solved once she quit her job. She says that school is her first priority and then everything, including being Miss Bonita, comes second.
This is not to say that she is not busy, though. Sandoval says her planner is her lifeline.
"I carry my planner in my purse all the time," said Sandoval. "I even schedule time to hang out with my friends."
Despite how flawless her photos look, Sandoval admits she is not perfect.
"I'm a big procrastinator!" she exclaimed.
Perhaps she schedules time for that, too.
Jasmine Henry contributed to this story.
Be the first to comment on this article!