YORKTOWN — Annie Mowery remembers her crowning moment as Miss Virginia Volunteer 2024 one year ago with pride.
“It was a moment where everything just went silent for me. I knew that the place was really loud. Everything felt so quiet and still. It’s a really surreal experience. It was a really special moment for me,” Mowery said.
Throughout her year of service, Mowery has been able to travel around the state and appear at various events. She was also eligible to compete in the National Miss Volunteer America pageant.
“I had never been to a national pageant before and I remember going into it thinking that all of the girls were going to be so scary and mean. They all ended up being so sweet and so kind. It’s truly such an emotional week, because you’ve worked the entire year just for that one week at nationals,” Mowery said.
Mowery’s favorite moment? Connecting with all sorts of local titleholders across the state.
“Being able to really give back to our local titleholders was so special. Whether I had coffee with them or dinner with them, they are really the building blocks of any pageant organization. You have all these local titleholders that represent different areas across the state and then there is only one state titleholder at the end of the year. Just like there is only one national winner every year. I really tried to pour back into them with the same support that they gave me,” Mowery said.
Originally heading into the national competition with a platform based on sharing and connecting stories of history, Mowery and her coaches ultimately decided to switch her platform at the last minute to domestic violence awareness.
“I am a domestic violence survivor. For the longest time, I wasn’t totally sure how comfortable I felt about sharing that part of my life on such a large scale. I felt like I hadn’t fully healed from it, not because I was afraid or ashamed of talking about it. Now in hindsight, it may have been a little too soon. That said, I think one of the really great things that came out of it was getting to meet a wide variety of public officials who work directly with domestic violence victims. Having conversations with these people who work day in and day out to make sure that survivors like myself are getting the right help, that was really impactful,” Mowery said.
While she didn’t place at the national competition, Mowery says she still felt a wide range of different emotions as the pageant went on.
“Annie Mowery as a person was totally fine with not placing. It was nice to not have to worry about getting cut or being stressed the whole night. In that aspect of it, I knew I could kind of sit back and relax. But Annie Mowery, Miss Virginia Volunteer, was freaking out. I never expected that I would be upset about it or had that kind of reaction. I was so upset for all the people that had poured so much time and money into me. To have traveled to the national pageant for nothing, it was devastating for me,” Mowery said.
Her 365-day reign concluded, Mowery has now passed the crown to the newest Miss Virginia Volunteer, Haleigh Hurst. Having relinquished her title, Mowery ends her year of service with pride.
“I realize that it truly is the little things I did or the little interactions that I had with people that were far more impactful. You can do a bunch of events, you can do all the flashy things, but really having that crown on my head and having that title made me step out of my comfort zone and made me do the small things for people that I may not have necessarily had the confidence to do before. I would rather be the people’s princess and be the person that anyone can relate to and that was the thing I was most proud of during my year of service,” Mowery said.
Mowery, who is now back at work full time as an archeologist and development assistant for the Fairfield Foundation in Gloucester, hasn’t decided if she is hanging up her pageant shoes.
“I keep toying back and forth about whether I want to compete again and I’m not entirely sure. There is a part of me that wants to do it one more time, there’s also the other part of me that would rather do something a little more chill and relaxed. That said, nothing is set in stone yet.”