The Busy Life of a Preteen Queen

Grasping the title was only the beginning.

Basking Ridge resident Adina Triolo hasn't been sitting still since being named National All American Preteen queen earlier this year.

The William Annin Middle School student has kept herself busy with a steady schedule of volunteering, theater, traveling and more. She traveled to Texas recently for a photo shoot, and last Sunday, she showed up at 6 a.m. to spend her 13 birthday volunteering with the third annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, handing out yogurt in the rain to runners.

"A few years ago I lost a friend to breast cancer so we decided to start volunteering and it happened to be my birthday, so I decided that would be a good way to start off the day," Adina said. One of the walkers she handed yogurt to was Miss NJ Preteen Leslie Ann Merced, a friend Adina made in past pageants.

"We've been good friend for the past three years because we've been competing together for a long time," she said.

The next week will be another busy one for Adina as she begins her role of Lily, the girlfriend of Miss Hannigan's brother in the musical "Annie," which is one of her favorite Broadway shows. The play begins on May 3 at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn. The show will also be performed as a service for seniors and special needs children in the area.

"It's a really fun show, there's a lot of humor and luckily I got a very humorous character," Adina said. "My favorite scene is where Rooster and I pretend to be Annie's parents and we fooled Miss Hannigan. It's a lot of fun because we get to overact it and overdo it." Adina, who has been doing theater since she was 9, said she enjoys theater most because of the singing it involves.

She'll step onto another type of stage on May 8, in the second annual competition "Idols for a Cause," which she auditioned for and was chosen as one of 21 contestants. She'll be singing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" in the show at North Hunterdon High School, which starts at 6:30 p.m. Proceeds from the $15 tickets will go to the New Jersey Art School.

"I think it's going to be a blast," she said.

And she has no plans to slow down this summer. She'll be heading out to state pageants in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and more to help other girls check in, give advice on gown walks and rehearsals, and hand out trophies, one of her duties as the national queen.

So how does she find the time to balance all of this with school?

"You know sometimes it is a little difficult, but I somehow manage to do it," Adina said.

Her mom said it has required some sacrifice and a lot of diligence from this new teenager.

"She does a really very good job of keeping it all together. She manages to get her work done, that's always her priority to try to keep her grades up…she stays focused on that because she knows at the end of the day that's the priority," Mandy Triolo said.

It means Adina doesn't spend time just hanging out aimlessly with friends, Mandy said. Instead she spends quality time at specific activities with her friends, or spends Friday nights at home catching up on reading and homework.

"It's tough, she has a really packed schedule and she likes it that way. She's the one that's wanted to try all these things," Mandy said. "So she knows that she has to give some stuff up if she does all of it…  Sometimes I don't know how she does it."