Audrey Kittila
Unlike a lot of pageant contestants, Audrey Kittila did not grow up in the pageant world. She grew plenty – to a cool six foot one – so her height did make her a great candidate to become a model. Kittila began modeling at age 14, freelance doing runway. When Kittila arrived at the University of Georgia for her freshman year of college she saw a poster on the wall at freshman orientation advertising the Miss University of Georgia competition, and told her dad, “I’m going to do it.”
Kittila took to heart the lesson that when you’re a freshman in college, you want to try new things. “I’m really glad I did, because I actually ended up winning Miss UGA my freshman year of college at UGA, and that was what started this whole journey for me.” Her top 15 finish in the Miss Georgia competition that year earned some scholarship money.
Kittila is now in the Speech-Language Pathology graduate program at UGA, about 80% of the way through the program. One of the things about competing in Miss America, it makes going to class pretty tricky. She had to play with the timing of grad school in order to go to Miss America last fall, but will do one more internship in a hospital this fall.
She is currently in an internship at a metro Atlanta elementary school, studying under a supervisor, working with a caseload of about 35 students – everything from autism spectrum disorder to articulation, and phonological. “I’ve gotten to see a lot of students grow, and that’s been the most rewarding part, getting to see I do know what I’m doing,” said Kittila.
Before she started her internship, she was a full-time Miss Georgia, traveling over a thousand miles a week championing her community service initiative across the state. Every title holder, state title holder, national title holder, and local title holder in the Miss America organization champions a community service initiative during her year of service. For Kittila, that is centered around education. “Looking at what the drivers of school dropout in Georgia, and how do I help more students see the graduation stage when they turn seventeen or eighteen years old?” said Kittila. “It’s been an incredibly rewarding four years getting to do this because it’s given me the chance to talk about education to students that are pre-K all the way up through high schoolers, anchored around the idea of literacy and building strong literacy skills.”
“Nobody comes into this and expects to be a pageant queen forever, but it prepares a set of skills that make women more successful in the workplace. They give scholarship money to help with education, and also equip you with the skills to go out and to be an effective communicator and ultimately make a difference,” said Kittila. “That’s something that I think everybody should know about what I do, and at the core, that is what Miss America is all about, is making a difference and preparing great women for the world and the world for great women.”
