DEBORAH CORRAO / L’Observateur / July 24, 1999

With her tanned good looks and cheerful personality, she’s everybody’s idea of the girl next door.

Except 22-year-old Julie Lawrence of Destrehan is the reigning Miss Louisiana and will be vying for the title of Miss America in September.

A 1999 magna cum laude graduate of the University of New Orleans, Lawrence has lived with her parents in Destrehan for the past six years.

Her plans to attend medical school at Louisiana State University in Shreveport this fall have been put on hold as she competes for the honor of being America’s sweetheart and fulfills her obligations as Miss Louisiana.

“It’s triple the work to get ready for the Miss America Pageant as it is for state pageant,” Lawrence says.

For the rest of the summer Lawrence will be living in an apartment in Monroe where the state preparation committee will groom her for the Miss America pageant.

Besides shopping for the wardrobe she will need for the competition and her 17-day stay in Atlantic City prior to the big night, Lawrence will work with a personal trainer, take dance classes and practice mock interviews in preparation for the all-important 12-minute interview with pageant judges that is one of the most important parts of the competition.

Lawrence, an accomplished dancer, accidentally set out on what would become the road to Atlantic City began just three years ago when her family received a phone call from a voice coach for some of the Miss Louisiana pageant contestants who had seen a tape of a dance performance.

“I really don’t know how he got hold of that videotape,” Lawrence says, “but somebody had it somewhere in this state. He got in touch with myparents and kept bugging them to get me to enter a pageant.

While Lawrence had watched the Miss America pageant all her life, she says she had never harbored dreams of competing.

“I said ‘no way, I’m not a pageant girl, I don’t want to do that,'” she says.

“After I got into one, I decided it was something I wanted to do; I hadn’t realized how much I could benefit from it.”She was finally persuaded, at 19, to enter the Queen Dixie Gem contest associated with the Peach Festival in Ruston, which is a preliminary to the Miss Louisiana pageant.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Lawrence says. “I rented my clothes,rented my interview suit and my swimsuit, and ended up winning the pageant.”In 1998, she took the title of Miss Shreveport and garnered first runner-up status in the Miss Louisiana pageant, which made her eligible to enter the National Sweetheart Pageant. There she met seven young ladies who havegone on to become contestants for Miss America.

As Miss Louisiana Lawrence was awarded $11,000 in scholarship money which she can use when she continues her education a year from now.

“That will pay for a year of medical school,” she says.

A win in Atlantic City would provide an additional $40,000 in scholarships and up to $200,000 for appearances for the year a contestant holds the title of Miss America.

In the preliminaries of the Miss Louisiana pageant on June 19, Lawrence won the swimsuit and talent competition.

For the talent portion of the pageant, she danced en pointe to “Man of LaMancha,” which she plans to repeat, with a few minor changes, for audiences on the big night in Atlantic City.

She will also be wearing the same lime green two-piece swimsuit that she wore in the state contest. She has bought a new turquoise gown forthe evening wear competition.

Lawrence lives with her parents, Bob, a broadcast engineer for Channel 38 in New Orleans, and Vanessa, a wholesale distributor for Jax Beverages in Harahan.

She also has two older sisters, Sherril and Cindy, who will be in the audience along with boyfriend Ron Britsch, a second-year dental student at LSU Dental School in New Orleans.

“He’s ecstatic; he’s more excited than I am,” she says. “He’s been therethrough all my competitions. He tells everybody I’m his girlfriend.”The couple has no plans to wed yet. Both want to finish school andLawrence says, even if she is not crowned Miss America, her role as Miss Louisiana will take up a lot of her time for the next year.

She’s already scheduled for several school appearances where she will act as official hostess for the “Louisiana Cares for Children” program. Assuch she will be speaking with school children to improve their self- esteem and encourage them to stay away from drugs and set goals.

Lawrence, who was touched by the death of a friend’s child from cancer, plans to specialize in pediatric oncology when she returns to medical school.

If she should become the next Miss America, Lawrence says she would like to educate people on cancer in children through a platform on “Pediatric Cancer Awareness.” Meanwhile, she says she has to stay focused on preparing for the pageant.

“It’s exciting. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she says. “I’m reallylooking forward to it.”While she says the pageant can be very competitive, she has to keep her eyes on the prize.

“You can’t get caught up comparing yourself to the other contestants,” she says. “You may think someone’s legs are longer or someone’s clothes arebetter or someone else is smarter than you. If you focus on those things,you’ll let the crown slip away. If you really want the job, you can make ithappen.”Needless to say, River Parishes residents will have their eyes glued to their television sets the night of Sept. 18, rooting for their hometownfavorite.

“It’s funny. When I first started entering pageants, my friends used totease me and say, ‘Hey, Miss America!'” Lawrence says. “Now I’m reallygetting a chance at it.”

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