Miss Nashville Tally Bevis wins Miss Tennessee 2021

Lucas Finton - Memphis Commercial Appeal - July 4, 2021 - 02:29pm

Miss Nashville Tally Bevis was crowned Miss Tennessee 2021 on Saturday night at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts in Downtown Memphis.

The 23-year-old's sights are now on the Miss America competition as she attempts to bring home the title to the Volunteer State for the first time since 1987 when Kellye Cash-Sheppard won.

"Come again? Am I dreaming?" she said after Saturday's competition. "It will definitely take a bit of time for me to be used to the title. I don't think I've quite realized that I'll be competing for Miss America in December."

The Springfield native's plans, however, are to immediately get to work implementing her social impact initiative: the Vote with a Vision nonprofit. She says combating voter apathy is unique when compared to what is generally expected at scholarship competitions.

"I tried to take a look at what could be the most impactful not only that day," said Bevis, a graduate of Belmont University. "The initiative needs to be something that could change their trajectory or their habits long term."

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She said it is important that Vote with a Vision is nonpartisan and can reach as many Tennesseans as possible. Her immediate plans for the organization include applying for a 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, a move that she hopes will allow the organization to "increase our impact and our reach."

Her current goal is to register 10,000 voters. Along the way she wants to inspire younger generations of Americans to vote. That more members of the Gen Z and Millennial generations are voting, but remain underrepresented in the electorate, bothers Bevis.

So, she'll focus her nonprofit's direction to not only engage young voters, but also protect voter access — something she worries is under attack.

"If the population of an area is denser, then the number of polling locations should increase. We see people are disproportionately affected and disenfranchised because of long wait times, voter suppression and really strict voter ID laws," Bevis told The Commercial Appeal. "It is not only a responsibility to vote, but it is a constitutional right. And so I want to protect that in the next year."

Miss Nashville 2021 Tally Bevis is officially crowned Miss Tennessee during the final night of the scholarship competition at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, July 3, 2021.
Vote with a Vision will maintain a nonpartisan position, she said.

"Voter apathy and disenfranchisement are big issues we have. I want (young Americans) to go to the polls with their parents so that it becomes a habit, it becomes cool to vote," Bevis said.

Vote with a Vision is not Bevis' only social impact goal, though. Standing at about 6 feet tall (plus a few inches in heels), she hopes she can encourage Tennesseans to feel comfortable in their own bodies.

"One of my biggest missions is to show young Tennessee girls that healthy is the new skinny. As someone who's almost 6 foot, flat footed, I'm just built different, and I always see women who look different than me."

Emphasizing that the path to the scholarship competition circuit can look different for everyone, Bevis noted that she did not grow up entering such competitions from a young age.

"I don't think I would even wear a dress until I was 15 or 16," she said with a laugh.

Miss Nashville 2021 Tally Bevis sings during the Miss Tennessee Scholarship Competition at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, July 2, 2021.

Now, with all of her student loans paid off from the scholarship winnings, she hopes to reiterate the message to young women that scholarship competitions can help unlock opportunities. And with a recent rule change in the Miss America Competition, those opportunities will be available to more young women than ever before, Bevis said.

"In our contract, we are no longer required to be born female; we are simply required to be female," she said. "That is a really big shift in the pageant community. It's more inclusive than ever, and that's a shift in the right direction."

Bevis takes over the mantle of Miss Tennessee in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that put a pause on scholarship competitions across the country. In a year defined by solitude and self-quarantines, she took the time to reach out to other contestants across the country to build connections with them.

"We have almost 1,000 local title holders across the United States, and people forget that you can work across borders; you don't have to just stay in your state," she said.

Miss Music Row 2021 Sabrina Ponte, left and Miss Nashville 2021 Tally Bevis wait to see who will be officially crowned Miss Tennessee during the final of the scholarship competition at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, July 3, 2021.

"We created a class group where I was able to connect over 600 of those local title holders in a Facebook group. We were able to create social media campaigns, and we connected people with similar social impact initiatives. It became a network of women who have become some of my dearest friends."

The Miss America Scholarship Competition will be hosted in Connecticut in December. Until then, Bevis will stay busy fielding calls, convincing people their vote matters. More immediately, though, she said she will be hanging out with The Peabody ducks, appreciating a Memphis staple regardless of her Nashville title. She's Miss Tennessee now, after all.

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/2021/07/03/miss-tennessee-2021-winner-miss-nashville-tally-bevis/5358471001/