A woman who used her personal pain to work to reunite children with their incarcerated fathers won the Miss South Carolina crown Saturday night at Township Auditorium.
Davis Wash, Miss Clemson, started The Silent Victims organization with a “commitment to transform pain into purpose” and has worked with Proverbs229, a Charlotte-based nonprofit with a similar focus.
Her father, a police officer, was sentenced to prison when she was a student at Clemson University.
She has said in newspaper interviews previously her father was sentenced to eight months for a violent crime, but did not say specifically what the crime was.
“Sitting in the waiting room during those difficult times, surrounded by other children facing similar situations, I felt compelled to be a beacon of hope for those who may have had it even tougher than my family — my two younger brothers, my mother, and me,” she wrote on her Silent Victims website.
She said she sought to offer a platform to people like herself to break the stigma. She has also volunteered for a nonprofit that records imprisoned fathers reading bedtime stories to their children.
During the pageant, Wash said she purposely has shared her story to be vulnerable.
“I had to show every facet of me,” she said.
She said during the conversation section with the four other finalists that the Miss South Carolina Organization made her into the woman she is today.
She said hers is a story of determination.
Wash’s talent was singing “Ain’t No Sunshine.” She is from Edgefield.
She was first runner up to Miss South Carolina 2023 Jada Samuel last year. She has been a part of Miss South Carolina since she was 12.
Miss Myrtle Beach Brooke Vu was 1st runner up.
This year marks the 87th year for the Miss South Carolina competition.
The new Miss South Carolina will go on to the Miss America contest, now named Miss America Opportunity.
The contestants have spent the week rehearsing and taking part in the preliminary rounds, which go toward selecting the top 15 semi finalists.
Miss South Carolina Scholarship Organization will award $260,000 in scholarships this year, including $60,000 to Miss South Carolina and $12,500 to Miss South Carolina’s Teen.
Samuel, a Greenville resident who was Miss Bridge City, is a digital marketing strategist and graduate of the University of South Carolina with a broadcast journalism degree. She has been an on-air personality for the South Carolina Lottery.
She spent her year concentrating on service and working to draw more women into the competition.
Toward that end, she founded a nonprofit — iShapeMe Inc. — in 2014 to encourage positive body image, self-esteem and a fit and healthy lifestyle, according to her Linked In page.
The Miss South Carolina Organization announced this week it was renaming the quality of Life Award in honor of Samuel.
“It is the greatest honor of my life,” she said on Instagram.
Samuel said during the show Saturday that she is debt free because of the scholarships she has won through Miss South Carolina. Her favorite appearance was returning to Southside High in Greenville, where she attended.
The other finalists were 2nd runner up Miss Midlands Ally Grooms, 3rd Miss Camden Jules Lemonds and 4th Miss Columbia Jordyn Lewis.
Earlier in the day, Mary Elle Marchant, River Bluff’s Teen, was named Miss South Carolina’s Teen. Her platform is #HangUpandHangOut, saying how important it is to unplug from social media and other diversions commonly consuming young people.
She also said in response to a question about time management from co-host Morgan Nichols Scarnecchia that her best method is prayer. She said, “God has a plan for all of us.”
Marchant also won in preliminary contests for teen fitness and teen evening gown and was 1st runner up in 2023 as Columbia’s Teen.
For her talent, she performed a lyrical dance to the song “I Hope I Get It” from “A Chorus Line.”
In all, 34 young women competed for Miss South Carolina’s Teen at Township Auditorium. She hopes one day to appear on Broadway or to become a Rockette.
Marchant will go to compete in the Miss America Teen, which is a division of the Miss America program for ages 13-18.
