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21/07/2019
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Thomas Geyer tgeyer@qctimes.com Jul 21, 2019 Updated 5 hrs ago
Preliminary competition for Miss America’s Outstanding Teen begins Tuesday in Orlando, Florida, and Bettendorf’s Caitlin Crome will represent the State of Iowa in the national competition.
The competition ends Saturday with the crowing of the teen who will represent the nation as Miss America’s Outstanding Teen for 2020.
Caitlin, 17, the daughter of Jennifer Crome and Christopher Crome, won Miss Iowa’s Outstanding Teen Pageant in June on her first attempt in competition.
“It was very surreal,” Caitlin said. “I started in this organization just hoping to gain new skills and challenge myself. I didn’t expect this to happen.”
Caitlin said that it was her friend, Emma Kate Wichman, of Bettendorf, who was Miss Iowa’s Outstanding Teen for 2011, that got her to look at the pageant.
Caitlin and Emma Kate grew up dancing together and Caitlin is friends with Emma Kate’s younger sister, Ally.
“We’re close to her family, and Emma Kate and her mom said we should look at this,” Caitlin said.
Caitlin, who will be a senior this school year at Pleasant Valley High School, said they looked at the program a year before she competed in her first pageant and decided to give it a try.
“I’ve only done two local pageants,” she said. “In October I got first runner up in the Miss Eastern Iowa pageant, and then I did Miss Greater Des Moines in December and won.”
In her first shot at Miss Iowa’s Outstanding Teen, she won.
Jennifer Crome said she was shocked when Caitlin won.
“I think I fell to my knees,” Crome said. “Those 13 girls that competed this year were very impressive. It was really impressive to see the talent and the drive all these girls had.”
One thing that the Miss America program is good for is forcing the girls and young ladies participating to not only grow up quickly, but just as fast to grow as a person, which Caitlin’s mom has learned.
“I look at her and think, ‘Where did she come from?’” Crome said. “Here’s a kid who was scared to talk to adults and didn’t have her own self-confidence. I could not believe she was up there on stage.”
Caitlin admits that, “a year ago there is no way you’d get me into a room full of adults and talk to them about any question they wanted to ask. I would have 110% refused. I would have been terrified.”
Crome said that Caitlin was the fifth contestant called for the final round. “There were a couple of girls with amazing talent that presented themselves well. They got all the way down to the top two, and Grace (Grace Sampson, First runner-up) is a very strong and intelligent girl.”
It was a shock, Crome said, that it was Caitlin who won.
“She had a goal,” Crome said of her daughter. “She not only wanted to win, but to become a better person that supports women and performs community service. I’ve seen the growth in Caitlin as she sits in a room and talks to them about confidence and how she interacts with adults.”
Caitlin said she has been dancing competitively since the age of 7. She played softball from about age 8 through her sophomore year. Now her sport is dance, and she has a goal for it, and that is to be a member of the University of Iowa Dance Team. She wants to major in sports management and journalism.
In Orlando, Caitlin will be competing against 50 other girls.
The judges, she said, “Want the person who will be the best representative of our country. They will want to see that person as talented, driven, and passionate about something, and who stands for something.
“Every girl down there, we have no idea what to expect,” Caitlin said. “Nobody goes more than once. It will be 50 teenagers and we got to go through this experience together, and to say that I’m a part of it is amazing.”
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