Past Rose Festival Queen and Tigard High School graduate Deja Fitzwater returned to the national stage last month wearing the Miss Idaho sash as she competed for the Miss America title.
When Fitzwater, now a 21-year-old college senior, was named Miss Idaho last June, she hoped to become the state’s first Miss America.
And though she didn’t add a new crown to the collection of local, state, and national titles she’s worn for Oregon and Idaho, she said the competition in West Palm Beach, Fla., was both a pinnacle and a return.
“It feels very full circle,” she said a few weeks before the pageant. Fitzwater was barely old enough to tie her shoes when she began competing. “I opened this chapter when I was five years old, being part of the Princess Program that we now call Miss America Little Sisters, and it was the highlight of my year to be on the Miss Oregon stage with the big girls.”
She was crowned 2022 Miss Oregon Outstanding Teen and has amassed about $15,000 in scholarship money from the organization.
That money, combined with other scholarship prize earnings, is helping to finance Fitzwater’s communication sciences degree at the University of Idaho, where she’s also minoring in animal sciences.
She plans on merging the two into a passion-driven career focused on drawing more young people into agriculture, ideally working as an educator with the 4-H extension program.
“Agriculture has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember,” she said. “The people in that community, our 4-H extension agents and the volunteers within 4-H, shaped who I am. They lifted me up and taught me to be a great leader.
She spent last summer as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Idaho Falls, Idaho, working with 4-H programming and community education, a role she says gave her insights into her prospective field and helped shape her Miss America community service initiative.
Competitors must pen a short essay detailing their community service plans. The essay partially informs questions for a private, off-stage interview segment of the contest. Fitzwater’s fire is in part fueled by her concern for the industry’s future. Agriculture, she noted, is currently impaired by record-low student enrollment in high school and university programs.
“(My initiative) is called Advocate of AG,” she said. “I want people to learn by doing. Inspiring others to learn by doing is a large part of what I do because agriculture builds life, leadership, and communication skills. I’m already boots on the ground. Every single day I do something to help champion that initiative.”
Fitzwater competed with state ambassadors from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The pageant opened Sept. 1. Though Fitzwater did not advance from the two preliminary rounds to the 11-woman semifinalist round, she added a $3,000 scholarship to her cash winnings.
