Her mom’s death led her to pageants. Now Miss SC eyes Miss America crown

Miss South Carolina, Davia Bunch, talks about her preparations for the Miss America Pageant and how her life has changed. By Tim Dominick

BY JEFF WILKINSON   August 28, 2018 03:51 PM

When Miss South Carolina Davia Bunch takes the stage in Atlantic City, N.J., next week in the Miss America competition, it will be the culmination of a heartbreaking and unlikely journey for the University of South Carolina senior.

Bunch, a Spartanburg native, was in elementary school when her mother, Debora, was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, a form of blood cancer. Over the next eight years, Bunch and her family traveled to hospitals in three states, with Davia sometimes living with her grandparents while her mother was being treated.

When Davia was 15, Debora died, leaving a huge void in the young girl’s life.

“Going through that at 15 years old (was) extremely difficult, and I didn’t know how to cope with my feelings,” said Bunch. “So when I turned 18, I made it a point to register for the national bone marrow registry ... and that felt like I officially reached closure.”

Today, Bunch carries with her at appearances a kit for potential donors to swab their cheeks, helping to build the registry one person at a time through the national Be The Match program.

“It just takes 20 seconds,” Bunch said.

And should she win the Miss America crown on Sept. 9 in Atlantic City, N.J., Bunch’s efforts to enlist donors and raise awareness for the bone marrow registry will be taken to an unimaginable level, she said.

“I couldn’t have done anything to save my mother’s life,” she said. “But now I can do something to, hopefully, save someone else’s life.”

A short road
Bunch left for Atlantic City on Tuesday. The next two weeks will be a whirlwind of events, appearances, banquets and competitions culminating with the Sept. 9 nationally broadcast finals. Like the rest of America, Bunch will not know if she is one of the 16 finalists until the live 9 p.m. broadcast on ABC.

Bunch, a ballerina, won the title of Miss South Carolina in June in just her second year of competing in pageants.

2018 Miss South Carolina Davia Bunch takes her victory walk after winning the 2018 Miss South Carolina pageant at the Township Auditorium in Columbia, SC.
Jeff Blake jblake@thestate.com

“My road was very short, very quick, but exhilarating,” she said while stopping in for a little pre-Miss America primping last week at Parlour 818 in Columbia, one of her sponsors. “I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I didn’t have a pageant mom to hold my hand.”

Bunch decided to first enter the pageant in 2017 as a 20-year-old sophomore studying dance at USC — a very late arrival in a pageant where girls begin as early as 13, competing in the Miss South Carolina Teen competition.

Her motivation, in part, was financial. Her student debt was piling up and she had decided to move from dance to law.

“And law school is expensive,” she said.

But she also wanted to dance and use her talents to further her work with the registry.

Bunch had studied ballet since she was 3 years old and was more than proficient. Her specialty is in the Russian Vaganova method.

Bunch won her first pageant, Miss Upstate, in 2017 on the strength of her en pointe performance. Then she made the finals of Miss South Carolina.

“I finished in the top 10, and I knew I wanted to come back,” she said.

After winning the Miss Spartanburg pageant this year, she went on to win preliminary talent, preliminary swimsuit, overall talent and the crown as Miss South Carolina.

“I walked away with $40,000,” she said, “which has given me the chance to be debt-free.”

‘I want to be Miss America’
Which brings us to the subject of swimsuits.

Although swimsuit was a category in the Miss South Carolina pageant this year, the women will not compete in that phase of the contest in Atlantic City.

The Miss America Competition, as it is now called, has eliminated swimsuit in favor of extended on-stage questions.

So how does Bunch, whose swimsuit appearances have helped her win competitions, feel about that?

Davia Bunch025.JPG
Davia Bunch, Miss South Carolina 2018, is about to leave for the Miss America Pageant in New Jersey. 8/24/18
Tim Dominick tdominick@thestate.com
“I’ve loved competing in swimsuit,” she said. “I’ve loved getting into the gym. It’s given me a more positive outlook on my body. But ... at the end of the day, I don’t want to be a swimsuit winner, I want to be Miss America.”

Under the new format, the candidates, as they are called, will compete in talent, private interviews, on-stage comments and evening wear mixed with a social impact statement, called “verbal tweets.”

Bunch has been studying up on current events and politics and prepping for interviews.

“I want to be ready for the hard questions no one wants to get,” she said.

Being authentic
Is she nervous?

“Of course, I have to be a little nervous,” she said. “To this day, I always get butterflies before I step out on stage. But I think I’m just more excited.

“I was very nervous competing for Miss South Carolina, but going to Miss America, I feel more liberated than anything,” she said. “If they loved me enough to be Miss South Carolina just by being authentic, then that’s what’s going to win Miss America. You can’t try to be an alternate version of yourself. That will never work.”

Her work ethic, self-confidence and talent will give Bunch a shot at the title, said Chaz Ellis, interim co-executive director and vice president of the Miss South Carolina Pageant.

“What sets her apart is her personal story and the road she has taken to get to the crown,” he said. “Her story has created strengths for her that not everybody has been able to experience. She’s driven, goal-oriented and passionate about her social impact. She has a spark to her that I haven’t seen in a long time.”

If she wins, Bunch will hand her Miss South Carolina crown to first runner-up Sydney Ford of Gaffney, who competed as Miss Greater Greer.

Either way, Bunch has taken a gap year from her studies at USC to fulfill her duties. Then she will return to pursue a degree in political science and, perhaps, a law degree.

Her goal is to change understanding of bone marrow cancer and its cure, and to advocate and help pass laws that benefit patients and donors.

“Everything that has happened in my life, whether good or bad, has led me to this moment,” she said. ”I have a story to tell. And it’s the story of my mother.”

https://www.thestate.com/news/local/article217401475.html