For the first time in Miss Ohio history, the talent winner and the swimsuit winner traded places. Last night Miss Miami Valley Cayla Hellwarth proved that she could not only perform a winning opera, but she was also the fitness winner. And it’s not over yet.
Tonight, at 7:30 p.m., is the final night of competition for the Miss Ohio. Ten women, out of the twenty-four, will be selected as finalists. The first People’s choice winner could produce eleventh competitor. This is the first time the People’s Choice, sponsored by Graham Auto Mall, will be included in the Miss Ohio competition. The People’s Choice voting takes place online at a dollar per vote.
However, Miss Montgomery Valley Heather Wells will make it to the final round regardless after winning two categories last night. Her breakthrough performance in a self-choreographed dance placed Wells beside Hellwarth as the preliminary winners of both competitions. They were also paired to stay together at a sponsor’s home, and have known each other for four years as they competed at the Miss Ohio competition.
“I had a different mindset this year,” Hellwarth stated. “I literally worked my tail off,” she said laughing, “I sped-walked every day, for fun, for an hour.” She wore a violet tone of colbalt blue for the swimsuit competition, and mentioned that the swimsuit competition was a focus for her this year as a place for self-improvement.
Hellwarth said she worked on her core musles as well as sticking to a healthy diet. This is Hellwarth’s fourth and final year competing for Miss Ohio and seven dedicated family and friends from Miami Valley are in Mansfield supporting her.
The families were very proud of both women, and were glad to see their four years of friendship through Miss Ohio culminate in two consecutive winning nights.
In the talent competition, Wells performed to the song “Alabaster Box.” She choreographed the lyrics into a modern dance, and utilized skills she learned at Kent State. In the fray of finals week, having already composed what she thought was the choreography for the song, inspiration hit.
“It was part of the creative process of choreography, like most artists are, I was unhappy with the work,” she explained, “ I was at the end of finals week, exhausted, and then the inspiration struck me so fast I couldn’t write it down.”
She added, “This is from a verse in the Bible, when Jesus was anointed with oil from an alabaster box,” Wells continued, “Mary Magdalene was thought of as a prostitute. And alabaster was considered too highly revered. For her to bring oil to anoint Jesus in an alabaster box was signifying, no,no, no. This woman is not a prostitute. Look at what this woman has done. There’s a moral to the story.”
It was a moving moment for both women to have won the first preliminary, and then the second round. Hellwarth and Wells anticipate the finale tonight.
