For Brookline Woman, Career in Pageantry Started with a Prank

For Loren Galler Rabinowitz, the long road to coronation as Miss Massachusetts started, as so many things do, with an innocent joke.

The 24-year-old Brookline resident was watching the Miss America pageant on television with five best friends at Harvard College years ago, when she laughed and boasted that she could totally do everything the contestants were doing. Two days later, she received a call from a pageant official inquiring about her application.

Unbeknownst to her, Rabinowitz's friends had entered her in a contest on a lark. And why not? Rabinowitz is not only an accomplished scholar and athlete, but the author of a published book of poetry about her experience shadowing a hospital chaplain. To top it off, she's passionate about volunteering and has studied classical piano since childhood.

So when the pageant official rang, Galler Rabinowitz took the challenge. And although she "only" placed in the top 10 in that first contest, she tried again, inspired by the scholarship money available from the pageants. On her second try, she won the title of Miss Collegiate Area, and then won Miss Massachusetts.

Along the way, Rabinowitz got some much-needed advice and training from Katie Boyd, the owner of Miss Fit in Wellesley. Although an accomplished figure skater with several national championships under her belt, Rabinowitz said the thought of walking down a stage in high heels was daunting.

"She gave me the confidence that if I can balance on a skate blade, I can walk on a heel. She taught me how to walk, turn, where to look," Rabinowitz said.

She's already won scholarship money and started the application process toward her dream of attending medical school, following in the steps of her parents. Her dad is a cardiologist at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, and her mother is a psychiatrist whose research centers around childhood malnutrition at the Judge Baker Children's Center at Children's Hospital and as the director of the Barbados Nutrition Study.

While it may have started as a joke, she takes her role as Miss Massachusetts quite seriously, especially since it gives her a platform to speak about childhood hunger, a subject she's seen her mother dedicate her professional life to.

"I'm so lucky because I have very strong female role models in my family. My grandmother was a holocaust survivor and my mother is a successful physician and businesswoman who had all the time in the world for the three of us," said Rabinowitz, who has twin 18-year-old sisters.

"But I know everyone isn't as lucky as I am. So I'm spending my time as Miss Massachusetts talking to as many kids as I can," she said. "It's been a crazy ride, but I'm so excited."

Rabinowitz is in Florida this week to help mentor the Jr. Miss America contestants and tape some segments for the Miss America pageant, which will be in January.