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Allie Gray signs "Don't Give Up On Me" by Andy Grammar. She has known American Sign Language since the third grade.
CELINA - Representing both the city of Celina and the state of Ohio, Miss Ohio's Teen Allie Gray is in the midst of competing for the Miss America's Teen title at the Walt Disney Theatre in Orlando, Florida.
The competition between 51 delegates from all 50 states and Puerto Rico is made up of five phases: fitness, talent, evening gown, a private interview and an onstage question.
For example, during the fitness portion, each competitor will perform a fitness routine in sports and athletic attire and gym shoes.
The winner of Miss America's Teen will take home a full-ride scholarship to the University of Alabama and additional scholarship fund.
Gray, 18, won the coveted Miss Ohio's Teen title and a $2,500 scholarship award in June 2024. Gray, who was also crowned Miss Lake Festival Outstanding Teen 2024, competed against 11 contestants at Miss Ohio's Teen, including Monica Hemmelgarn of Coldwater, Mackenzie Harmer of St. Henry and Reyna Hume of Wapakoneta.
Allie Gray of Celina won the coveted Miss Ohio's Teen title in Mansfield in June. She is pictured here being crowned Miss Lake Festival Outstanding Teen 2024.
Gray left for Florida on Dec. 27, and has since been busy with a flurry of competition events. Those include an arrival ceremony, preliminaries, an expo, a private interview and rehearsals; all leading up to the Miss America's Teen final show at 7 p.m. today.
Gray said she's spent the last two years preparing for the competition.
"I've had a title for a couple years now and then I went to Miss Ohio's Teen and won that," she said. "I feel like I've just kind of kept going. I have never really stopped prepping. It's always been the next thing. Over the past couple months though, I've been heavy prepping with outfits and mock interviews and practicing rehearsals and walking patterns. So it … it's been a lot but it's been great."
One of the best parts of the experience for Gray has been the friendships she's made along the way, she said.
"I would say the base of the whole program is really just a sisterhood," Gray continued. "It's really cool to see what everyone's initiatives are, or why they got to where they are, their story behind everything, because we are so much more than just pretty faces. There's just so much more behind (it) that people don't realize."
Although securing the crown is the main goal of this weekend's competition, Gray said her overall goal in being a part of the Miss America Organization is to positively impact her community.
"I'm trying to advocate for it with my community service initiative," she said. "My personal story was with body positivity, but as I have done service across the state of Ohio, I really realized that being real looks different for everyone. This caused me to use my sign language and put my best foot forward and advocate for the deaf and hard of hearing community."
In May, Gray joined forces with author-illustrator Kale Sudhoff, 19, Celina, and launched the nonprofit Silent Opportunities to support the hearing impaired and deaf community. The organization held their first fundraiser in September in Celina.
Inspired by a teacher who had a deaf son, Gray, a Celina High School senior, herself has been practicing American Sign Language (ASL) since the third grade. She's also taken three ASL courses at Wright State University-Lake Campus through the College Credit Plus Program.
"I would always see them communicating in church, and I always found it interesting how they were communicating with their hands," she said in an earlier interview. "I was in third grade. Of course I wanted to understand and know what they were trying to do."
Gray has enjoyed growing as a person through competition and community involvement, she said.
"No matter where I am or what service I'm doing, there's always someone I'm touching, or like someone that is growing from the experience and that's something I really enjoy," she said. "And as they're growing, I'm growing too. I think it's a really heartwarming experience to know that what I'm doing is impacting others around me."
For the young girls watching across Ohio and the Grand Lake Region, Gray wants them to know that they do not have to be perfect to succeed.
"That is something I didn't realize when I first entered the Miss America Organization," she said. "I felt like I was so new to this and I never did pageants when I was younger. I don't want girls to think that they have to live up to any standards, because they are perfect as is. And I got here by being myself and they too can be here by being (themselves)."
Locals can follow Gray's journey in Orlando by checking the Miss Ohio's Teen Facebook page.
