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Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Brighton High Grad Sparkles as Miss Utah, Sets Sights on Miss America Crown
The sparkling tiara of Miss America is within the reach of a Brighton High graduate who has dreamed of winning the title since she was a small girl watching the pageant on television.
Paris Matthews, a 2016 BHS graduate and the current Miss Utah, is doing her final preparations before leaving for Florida to vie for scholarships and the crown. When she crosses the stage in a glittering gown, it will be the realization of a vision she’s had in her head since she practiced her “pageant walk” in her living room as a 4-year-old child.
“At 4 years old, I was mimicking (what I saw on) the TV,” she says, “and I grew up competitively dancing and I did Miss Drill Utah. I just really loved the experience, and I started to think when I turned 19, I wanted to do pageants.”
The competition is Dec. 31-Jan. 5 in Orlando, and Matthews says she plans to take the lessons learned in CSD classrooms and while dancing with the BHS Accadians to the national contest.
Matthews credits Canyons teachers, coaches, and advisers with helping her develop the confidence she needed to pursue her dream of winning the state and, hopefully, the national title. She attended Ridgecrest Elementary and Butler Middle before becoming a Brighton High Bengal. Matthews also spent time as a substitute teacher for CSD.
“My fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Bunderson, is probably one of my biggest inspirations,” Matthews of her former Ridgecrest teacher, Pamela Bunderson, who has since retired.
“She really believed in me when I had little confidence in my academics and that is what really stuck with me for so long,” Matthews said. “Also being part of the drill team is what really, I think, cultivated in my dedication, my perseverance, my grit, my hard work and resilience.”
Matthews also lauds the influence of her drill coach, Chelsea Divine, who now leads Hillcrest’s team, the current 4A state champions. Divine continues to work with Matthews, even choreographing her drill performance for the talent portion of Miss Utah.
Episode Chapters
0:01 Miss Utah Paris Matthews
We introduce our guest show also shares how the last few months have felt as the reigning Miss Utah.
2:24 Miss America – A Professional Development Program
Matthews shares why she believes the Miss America Scholarship Program is a Professional Development Program — and how competing has helped her to grow as a person.
3:44 Empowering Child Life Specialist and Author
Not only is she Miss Utah and, hopefully, soon to be Miss America, but Matthews is a Child Life Specialist at Primary Children’s Hospital. She also tells us about the book she wrote to help children feel safe while in the hospital.
7:33 The Lasting Impact of Growing in Canyons School District
From fourth-grade teachers to drill coaches, Matthews shares how her time as a student in Canyons District helped teach her life-long lessons and develop friendships that continue to this day.
10:04 Overcoming Challenges to Achieve Dreams
It’s a lot of hard work competing for Miss Utah. We learn that Matthews tore a muscle right before the talent portion of the state competition and how her fellow contestants were the ones to help her overcome the injury.
11:55 The Road to Miss America
Matthews now has her eyes set on the Miss America competition in just a few short weeks. Learn how she’s preparing for the pageant.
13:16 Matthews’ Message to Canyons Students
From accepting failure to celebrating achievements, Matthews shares her message to Canyons students about following their dreams.
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyons School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more.
Speaker 2:Miss America is an organization that works to inspire women to achieve their goals and to do so with a little bit of style. Here at Canyons School District, we work to ensure every student, graduates, college and career ready and reaches for their goals as well. Welcome to Connect Canyons. I'm your host, Frances Cook, and today I'm joined by someone who embodies both of those missions Canyons alumni and this year's Miss Utah, Paris Matthews. Paris, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2:We're excited to have you. I can imagine the last few months have been just a daisy dream of a whirlwind. You were just crowned in June, so tell me what has it been like? Has it sunk in yet?
Speaker 3:It finally has sunk in, but it felt like Christmas morning every morning for a few months there, and it still does. It's just as exciting, but now it feels a little more real and a little more settled. But now my next dream is going to Miss America and that's going to be on New Year's. So it's a whole new dream that I'm just really excited to keep pursuing.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, and you're already working for that. I want to get more into that in a little bit. Tell me this is something you've been working towards since you were probably, yay high. I saw the clip of you watching the pageant on TV and just practicing your walk, so this has been years in the making.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when I was little, my mom and my grandma and I we all were really into pageants and I never really thought I wanted to do that. But just at four years old I was mimicking on the TV and I grew up competitively dancing and I did Miss Drill, utah, in Utah, and I just really loved the experience and I started to think when I turned 19, I wanted to do pageants and so I started when I was 19 years old in the Miss America opportunity and I'm now 26. So I did it for eight years before I won the title of Miss Utah. But it took a lot of hard work to get there and I competed for seven years and 13 competitions before I even won my first local title. So it was a lot of hard work but my entire life cultivated in winning the title.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that. I mean, it's not just you know. I think we're finally moving away from that stigma of, oh, it's a beauty pageant, but no, it's actually a scholarship program and it's a lot of work. I mean you're doing interviews, you're doing your talent portion. Talk about kind of the work and dedication that goes into that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like to call Miss America a professional development program, because that's really what it did for me. I was terrible at public speaking. I was scared to raise my hand in class. I was really academically driven, but I didn't have that confidence that I really needed, and so the Miss America program really instilled that within me, and part of that was the interview portion and practicing for onstage questions, speaking in front of large groups, and so my first competition I couldn't even finish my sentence. It was kind of hilarious.
Speaker 3:My family and I joke about how it was a little bit embarrassing. But now I could stand in front of groups and auditoriums of people, talk about my passions, about the Miss America opportunity, my journey, my life, my career as a child life specialist, and so that is what really drew me to the Miss America opportunity in the first place. But it is a lot of hard work and it is a scholarship program, and so I graduated from the University of Utah. I'm pursuing my master's degree right now and I've been awarded over $18,000 of scholarships through the Miss America opportunity.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful Congratulations, thank you. Let's talk about what you're doing with your education. You work as a child life specialist at. Primary Children's Hospital. Can you talk about what that entails?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's kind of hard. It's a niche career that a lot of people don't know about, but my whole role is to increase coping for children and families throughout hospitalization. So it looks a little different depending if you're inpatient or outpatient. Me personally I'm outpatient in the emergency department and then I cover a short-term inpatient unit and then long-term infusion patients and so it's a lot of development to appropriate preparation so I translate doctor words into kid language so they understand what's going to happen. So I teach them about IVs using soft language, enemas, any kind of invasive procedure, so the kid knows and feels empowered step by step through the procedure. Development to appropriate distraction so I love toys. My favorite distraction technique to use in the ER for procedures is I spy books. So I do a lot of spot it, a lot of I spy books, alternate focus, just to make the hard stuff easier.
Speaker 3:Therapeutic play, development to appropriate diagnosis education. So I teach kids about their cancer diagnosis, diabetes, arthritis, anything you can name. Translate it from that doctor, talk to the kid talk. And then I also do grief and bereavement support for families and children when the devastating loss of a child you know, I actually my I call her my niece.
Speaker 2:She's one of my closest friends daughters. She had childhood leukemia and was at primary children's and I got to see some of your colleagues, you know, helping her to understand and they would get the doll out and show her you know, her port or where the IV was going to go, and it was just beautiful that you're there to help them kind of understand and not maybe feel as scared. Yeah, exactly, and you wrote a book, yes, mabel's Hospital Adventures yes, what's that about?
Speaker 3:Mabel goes to the hospital. It's her very first time and so new things are scary. And so Mabel goes. She has a tummy ache, her doctor says she needs to go to the emergency department and there she has all sorts of tests done. But child life specialist, ms April, comes in and teaches her about the test. So she gets a CT scan, an IV, I think, an ultrasound, and she's empowered throughout these procedures because she knew exactly what was going to happen and does some distractions, ms April. She ends up having surgery and she talks about how it's hard to be at the hospital. But something that was easier was play in the playroom. And she realized that she wasn't the only kid there when she saw other teaching other kids about hospitalization who might not have experienced it before through the children's book.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. What drove you to want to write this book and want to work in the field that you are? You said you're pursuing your master's as well, in hospital administration.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I stumbled upon child life. I always knew I want to work in pediatrics, but I think psychosocial support is really important for children, and so I was volunteering at Primary Children's in the oncology unit and I was underneath working a child life specialist. And so the first day of my volunteer orientation I met a child life specialist, learned that it was about coping at the hospital and empowering children throughout their hospital journeys and supporting families in a really special way, and I changed my major that very day and so that was really special for me and it's such a unique career and I feel like it really is made for me. But what made me want to write the book is there's very little resources about child life specialists and wanting to prepare children and let them know what's going to happen at the hospital and the power of play.
Speaker 3:90% of children who are hospitalized end up having symptoms of anxiety or depression or post-traumatic stress after hospitalization. So it's just sharing the power of the power. Play for these kids is what inspired me to write the book. But I want to be in this career forever and so I also want to make a difference for hospitalized kids and I have this different lens of that psychosocial support, which is why I want to be in hospital administration, which is my master's degree.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. I love that you keep going back to empowerment you know, whether you're in the hospital or just pursuing your career. Tell me, how did your time in Canyons? You were both a student here and you worked with us as well for a while. How has that impacted you?
Speaker 3:I think I've always been really big about academics and my academic journey in Kane School District, I think, empowered me with the confidence I can do big things. I was in our ALPS program, I went to Bella Vista, I went to Ridgecrest, I went to Butler Middle, I went to Brighton High School. So I grew up in Canyons and so many of my teachers really just believed in me and I think if I didn't have that belief within, that was instilled in me in a young age, I wouldn't have been driven to choose such high things. And my fourth grade teacher, ms Bunderson, is probably my biggest inspiration for me. She really believed in me when I had little confidence in my academics and that is what really stuck with me for so long and for so many years. But also being on the drill team is what really, I think, cultivated in my dedication, my perseverance, my grit, my hard work and resilience, and so being a part of Brighton High Drill is definitely what empowered me to be a Miss Utah.
Speaker 2:And you're carrying that with you on your Miss Utah journey and now into your work trying to become Miss America as well. So Chelsea Devine was your drill coach at Brighton. She's now at Hillcrest, but she's also been helping you with your talent portion.
Speaker 3:Yes, I would not be the dancer or woman or leader I am today without Chelsea. I really feel like she kind of what I touched on with my fourth grade teacher she just really believed in me and dance was something that you know competitively dancing or being critiqued a lot but I felt like Chelsea always was, gave me a chance and saw the potential that I had and that really allowed me to keep pursuing my dreams, and I don't know if I would have stuck with dance for as long as I did if it wasn't for her really empowering me, and so it's really special. Chelsea was my coach back in 2013. And she helped me choreograph or she did choreograph all of it my dance for Miss Utah, and so it was really special that she was a coach a decade ago and she still is impacting my life today and I'm really excited to work with her for my Miss America talent as well.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. Now you, when we were talking earlier, you mentioned for your talent portion there was a bit of a hiccup right beforehand, and I'm so impressed by this. You actually tore a muscle during rehearsals.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's what happens when you quote unquote stop dancing at 18 and you're still dancing at 26. You're just not as limber as you used to. You're not dancing every single day. And so, yeah, right, during our rehearsals Miss Utah is actually a week long event, and so we had our talent rehearsals in the morning and I did it full out and I tore my muscle, and it was quite devastating for me because being Miss Utah was a goal I've worked nearly a decade for, and I didn't want a torn muscle to hinder me from that, and so that was a very emotionally hard moment for me, but luckily I kept stretching icy, hot, all the things, ice packs trying to make it work, and my muscles still hurt the entire week, but I was able to push through. So it was a really stressful experience, but that just goes to show that that determination and grit and resilience can come through even then.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned in your post too. You had a lot of support backstage as well, and I think that's so beautiful from your fellow competitors.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or you know you're all competing for the same thing, but you're all also rooting for each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the sisterhood about the Miss America opportunity is one of the most beautiful things. When you are competing against 50 other girls for the same thing, you think there'd be a little bit less camaraderie. But I really feel like we believe in each other and I would have been just as happy for another girl to win the crown too. And I always say different judges would have been a different outcome. And some of the best people I've met one I've originally crossed paths with are pageant women, and I wouldn't be who I am today without the impact of them as well.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. Tell me you're. You're almost in another phase, another level of competition.
Speaker 3:Yes, national, nationally.
Speaker 2:So how are you preparing to go into that competition? You've got couple of weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's less than 100 days before I check in for Miss America and people keep saying are you nervous? Are you nervous? And my answer is no, I'm just excited and I think it's because I'm confident in the skills that I have as a Miss Utah. And competing at pageants is really I'm just myself. I'm Paris and I'm Miss Utah and I already know who I am. I know what I believe in, I know my community service initiative, the power of play, and I know exactly what I'm going to do on the Miss America stage. So of course, I'm still prepping. I'm still really working on those interview skills. You've got to be very refined to be a Miss America, but I'm just excited to represent our state and all of these years working in pageants has prepared me for this. So I'm sure I'll get nervous once I'm there, but I'm really only excited at this time. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:You know. It just shows that you have a level of confidence that will just boost you up to the top. We know you're going to make it, thank you, and it sounds like you have a great support system too, from you know, your coaches to your mom. Hi, mom, your coaches to your mom. Hi mom, it's wonderful to hear that you are just achieving this dream that you've been working for for so long. What would your message be to any of our Kenyan students who want to follow in your footsteps or are worried about achieving their own dreams?
Speaker 3:I think that it's belief in yourself. When I first started competing in pageants or even applying for my child life internships, anything in my life it didn't come. The first try, the second try, the third try, the fourth try. Even with my career, I had to do four different rounds to get an internship to become a certified child life specialist, and so dreams worth having aren't going to come easily, and so it's going to take hard work and it's going to take perseverance, and failure will happen. So my message is expect failure it's just a part of the journey and keep going, keep trying, and if it's something that you want enough, you can make it happen.
Speaker 2:I think that's exactly right. You know, like you've said, you've spent so many years trying and competing to become Miss Utah and had you stopped your first time, you wouldn't be where you are today.
Speaker 3:Exactly, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us, for sharing your message, and we just wish you all the best of luck next month at the Miss America competition.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, of course, and thank you for listening. If there's a topic you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, send us an email to communications at canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
