Christina Lee

Christina Lee entered her first pageant at twenty-five, chasing something she had wanted for as long as she could remember. She won — and what kept her coming back was not the crown but the habit she could not shake: the stage, the other delegates she met, and the steady work of bettering herself. She competed several times after that. By her own account, she had the pageant bug.

Then the calling moved. Directing, she decided, was more her line, and the reason was not logistics but sightlines: from the director's chair she could watch girls and women find their potential and their confidence. Whether or not they won was, she is careful to say, beside the point.

No matter if they won the crown or not, they became the best person of themselves — and I had the pageant bug.

It is the same pull that kept her competing, applied now to somebody else's transformation, and it explains the shape of everything that followed. No matter what organization she is part of, Christina believes her calling is to help others. Today her role in the pageant world is to consult and to mentor, and she describes herself as content — a quiet word for the work of watching women and girls grow into their best versions of themselves.

Ask for evidence and she has had many national winners to choose from, but one delegate stands out. Christina noticed Danielle Mullins being active on social media — there was just something about her that was special — and reached out. Danielle, a makeup artist, assumed the message meant the pageant needed a makeup artist. It didn't. Christina wanted to recruit her.

The first time Danielle competed in Christina's pageant, she did not place. Christina asked her to come back, because she still saw the potential. This is where a director's power runs out, and Christina is unusually plain about it: she could not do the work for her, could not arrange anything special, could only invite her and hope she put in the work. Danielle put in the work. She won Miss Kentucky Earth USA, and from there she won Miss Earth USA.

It doesn't matter if you see the potential in yourself — when somebody sees the potential in you, sometimes that's enough to unlock your greatness.

That, in Christina's reading, is what directors and pageant professionals actually hold: not the crown, but the invitation. They see the potential in others and give them the opportunity to be their greatest self. Of everything she has done in the pageant industry, she calls it one of the most fulfilling.

Off the clock she gardens, keeps company with her two golden retrievers and two black cats, and takes considerable pride in her kids and in watching them succeed. She likes interior decor, everything bourbon and horse racing, and hosting people at her house for the particular pleasure of showing them Kentucky. Most of all she likes spending time with her husband, who she calls very supportive, and with her pageant-loving friends — the many who help her.