Iowa girl competes for Miss USA title

Chelsea Gauger of Ankeny will vie tonight for the title of Miss USA, when the competition is broadcast live at 6 p.m. from Las Vegas on NBC.Gauger, 20, a sophomore at Iowa State University and aspiring lawyer, was crowned Miss Iowa USA 2009 in November. She will be competing against women from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.A competitive dancer for 16 years, she decided to give beauty pageants a try at 17. She entered the Miss Iowa Teen USA pageant twice, and placed second runner-up each time.
Through that first pageant, she was introduced to doing volunteer work and community service, Gauger said. It taught her "to be able to give the gifts that God has given you, and to utilize those and help other people."Her philanthropy efforts have recently included working with the American Cancer Society, following the death of her mother, Elizabeth Gauger, from melanoma last year.We talked to Gauger before she left for Vegas:Q. Do you have any lucky items you carry with you for competitions? Or do you have special, pre-competition rituals you follow?
A. Anytime I have to travel, I take my baby blankets with me. There's three of them. My whole family makes fun of me because one is the size of a wash rag.Q. What do you enjoy the most, and the least, about competing in pageants?A. I love being on the stage. It's like a second home to me because of dancing all those years. Being able to stand up for me and what I believe in; it's just empowering. When you work really hard for something ... there's nothing really better than that feeling. The worst thing about it is you put in all this hard work and effort, and you have to sit and wait. The anticipation is horrible; you just want to know who it is.
Q. Your mother died of melanoma at age 54, just a few weeks before you won the title of Miss Iowa USA in November. Is there one specific piece of advice from her that you'll carry with you going into tonight's competition?A. When I was younger I was really shy and I never really just had that self-esteem, that self-confidence, and didn't really embrace the gifts that God had given me. She always used to say that, "Chelsea, if you could just take that gift and run with it, like dance." She would always tell me, "Chelsea you're beautiful and you just need to let yourself shine." These past couple months, preparing for nationals, it's been saying (to myself), "You are deserving."