Brown has enjoyed a year of representing Miss Tennessee Volunteer

Representing the state of Tennessee in the Miss Volunteer America pageant last month was a highlight for Jada Brown, who was Miss Lane College Volunteer before winning Miss Tennessee Volunteer a year ago.

And Brown has one more task ahead of her in that role, and that is crowning her successor.

Her year serving the Volunteer organization has shown how there’s been a shift in statewide pageant queens’ expectations.

That shift in expectations was evident very early in her reign as she was asking questions related to her extracurricular activities at Lane. When she was crowned Miss Tennessee Volunteer, she was just over a month from beginning her senior season playing volleyball for the Lady Dragons.

“I’d heard stories about how busy pageant winners were in the past as the Governor’s Character Education representative, so I was asking the night I won if I have to give up volleyball,” Brown said. “Because I was proud to be Miss Tennessee Volunteer and was ready to serve, but I didn’t want to give up volleyball just yet.”

Brown was relieved to find out that she wasn’t expected to drop volleyball, so she got to experience one final season with her teammates, and as a team captain.

“That was a blessing and a show of trust from my teammates because I wasn’t able to be at every practice and every game,” Brown said. “Because I went to as many local pageants as I could to represent the state as the contestants for this year’s pageant were selected, and I also went to a number of other state pageants to get to know some of my sisters in Miss Volunteer America.”

Winning the pageant last year also enabled Brown to enjoy a high honor at Lane’s homecoming, to be the grand marshal for the homecoming parade and enjoy all the rights and privileges that goes along with that.

“One thing I thought of that week was when I first came here as a freshman that I came to play volleyball, and I had no plans of doing much else outside class,” said Brown, who’s from Plant City, Fla., in the Tampa Bay area. “My freshman year, if I wasn’t in class or at practice, a game or my dorm, I was doing something with my teammates.

“So in three years, I went from doing nothing without my teammates to being the grand marshal of Homecoming Parade and seeing so many supporters in the Lane College community and Jackson out there. It was truly humbling.”

The rest of the fall semester and the spring were pointed toward two goals – graduation and Miss Volunteer America.

The first goal was achieved in April when she earned her Bachelor’s degree of Science in Biology.

Brown came close to achieving the second goal as she was a top-10 semifinalist in last month’s Miss Volunteer America pageant.

Miss Tennessee Volunteer will be crowned on July 27. The preliminaries will be July 24-26.

Each night will be part-scholarship pageant involving 36 contestants in this year’s competition and part-celebration of Brown’s year of representing the organization.

She’ll be introduced as the guest of honor early in each night after the contestants perform opening numbers. She’ll be greeted with a standing ovation from the crowd. She’ll perform her talent, which is sign language performance as her platform focuses on ensuring people in the hearing impaired community are welcomed into mainstream society as much as possible. She’ll even make a few presentations from the podium during specific segments when hosts Allison and Jay DeMarcus are taking a break backstage.

At the end of each preliminary night, she’ll hand a bouquet of roses to each preliminary winner, and then at the end of finals night, she will crown the next Miss Tennessee Volunteer.

“Do I have to give the crown to someone else?” Brown said with a laugh when asked what she thought about doing that. “I’ve experienced so much in the past year, I’m willing to compete again to do it again.

“But this experience has prepared me well for my next chapter in life, and I’ve still got to choose exactly what I’ll do. But I know among my choices, I feel this experience has really empowered me and allowed me to really grow as a woman and as a professional. I’m so appreciative of everyone here and this opportunity from Lane College and the Volunteer organization. I’m blessed.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news