MISS JACKSON PREPARES FOR MISS MISSOURI PAGEANT

The 1998 Miss Missouri Pageant will be held in Mexico, Mo., in June and in preparation for the pageant Miss Jackson Autumn White of Ewing visited Jackson last week to give presentations to civic organizations on communication science disorders, which is her platform.

This will be the third time for White in the Miss Missouri competition, so she's no stranger to the pressure.

White has competed in 10 pageants and won five. Besides her crown as Miss Jackson, she's been Miss Lewis County Fair, Junior Miss Missouri Sweetheart, Miss Hannibal and Miss Mark Twain Lake.

The Miss Missouri pageant has four areas of competition and each are weighted differently. The talent competition, which White will sing "How do I Live?", is worth 40 percent of the total.

The evening gown competition is worth 15 percent, as is the swimsuit competition. The interview is worth 30 percent. There are 31 contestants in this year's pageant.

A junior at Southwest Missouri State University, White is studying speech language pathology. She plans to graduate in 2000 and will then go into graduate school for speech language pathology.

She hopes to work in a clinic or hospital setting when she finishes her schooling.

While in Jackson she has spoken to several civic groups about the Miss Missouri pageant and the Miss America pageant as well as speak about her platform.

She's trying to educate society on the tools that are used to help the deaf community. Some of the things she is relaying to her audiences in Jackson and her hometown of Ewing have been how to know when an interpreter is needed and other ways to communicate with the deaf besides sign language.

She stayed at the home of Kirk and Mary Beth Williams and she found time to go to Nashville, Tenn., to buy her evening gown this week.

Her first inspiration to get involved in pageants was the scholarship money that could be won. A friend also had been in pageants and told her they were fun.

Being Miss Jackson has helped White with money for school and it has also given her many opportunities to present her platform to the public. And she has received a great deal of support from the community to help her prepare for the upcoming Miss Missouri Pageant.

She is the daughter of Bob and Lori White, she has one sister and one brother.