Brandi Pope

And that eventually led me to this chair right here with you.

You know what?

I never saw myself on a pageant stage, let alone becoming a director of a state pageant for one of the biggest pageant systems out there for married women.

But I stepped into the role as Mrs. Virginia America's pageant director.

And I did that for five years.

And I...

learned so much about production, about really putting on a show, connecting with women, hearing their stories.

It's crazy.

You probably do literally.

Organized chaos is the perfect way to describe putting on a pageant.

It is a year full of just work and trying to rally contestants to be, I mean, it's marketing, it's all of these things.

Oh my goodness.

It is literally everything all at once.

And what I will say is there's absolutely no way that I could have ever done it without my family kind of coming and locking arms with me and saying, hey, this is going to be a family effort.

Yes, I was the director, but I could not steer that ship alone.

Yes.

And so even though I was behind the scenes and putting in all the work throughout the year, when it came pageant weekend, it was a family affair.

I mean, I had my daughters were doing ticket sales and my mom's in the back zipping up zippers and my husband's trying to direct people where to go.

It was a whole thing.

It was a whole thing.