Town and Country Teen Wins International Beauty Pageant

Town and Country teen Francesca Mirabella wearing baggy camos for competitive hip-hop dancing to wearing evening wear, stilettos, and on a good weekend, even a crown in beauty pageants.

The Parkway West High School senior said she had just finished dancing one night, and a woman came up and told her she should do beauty pageants. “I was all gross,” Mirabella said, “And I looked at myself, what? What are you talking about?”

The woman persuaded Mirabella to enter the American Coed Pageant for Missouri and as the youngest girl there, she won. So she went to the nationals and placed sixth. “OK, I’m pretty good,” she said she thought. “I haven’t had any coaching, so why not keep doing it? And I learned to love it.”

Mirabella recently won the Miss Teen Missouri World Pageant, in Kansas City, MO. It’s the only teen pageant in which teens can compete against international contestants, if they get that far. She will go to Houston at  the end of June and compete with girls from every state for the Miss Teen United States World title.

The competition involves an interview, evening wear, and swimsuit competition, and lasts a weekend. “You usually have interviews in the morning, and that’s the speech that you do,” she said. “During evening wear, they ask an onstage question in front of the whole audience.

“These questions are crazy,” she said. “They can go anywhere from, if you had a pink crayon, what would you do with it? To, teachers being punished for students having bad grades. You never know, they can literally ask you anything.”

Mirabella is in the middle of five brothers and sisters. Her older brother goes to Maryville University, her older sister just graduated from cosmetology school, her little brother will go to De Smet Jesuit High School next year, and her little sister goes to Christ Prince of Peace School in Manchester. She said they’ve lived in the same home for 12 years, and that her father owns a law firm downtown and her mother is a stay-at-home mom.

“My mom is my biggest fan,” she said. “She’s literally like, right behind me throughout the whole weekend, when she can be.”

She said she keeps her pageant life and her friends separate, she said. “When it comes down to it, I really am just a normal 18-year-old girl. I don’t brag, I don’t gloat about the titles that’s I’ve won.

“My friends, whenever they come into my room, they see another crown, another trophy, they’re like, why didn't you tell me about this? What is this new big crown? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Mirabella has started her own charity, called Crowns for Hope, which has taken her to hospitals in St. Louis and Kansas City to visit kids, to make little crowns and banners with them to cheer them up.

Pageant winners receive scholarship money. College is in Mirabella's plans, but she’s not sure where, yet. She said Lindenwood University or law school at Saint Louis University are possibilities. She also said that winning  pageants has gotten her name out in the broadcasting field, and she is interested in communications.

For now, though, she’s enjoying competing in pageants. “The crowns are very heavy.” Mirabella said. “But I love it. It really keeps me on the right track…little girls look up to me and so it makes me want to be a good influence, be a good mentor.”