Last weekend, Michigan let out an enormous yell of triumph when Kirsten Haglund became the first Miss Michigan to become Miss America in 20 years.

Her win was the result of hundreds of hours of preparation made possible by a beating heart of assistants and consultants who became more like her family then her staff.

A crucial vein in this team was Aquinas’ own Dave Weinandy, Special Assistant to the Provost for Campus Life and Communications professor by day, Communications consultant to Miss Michigan by mid-day and weekends.

It all started in 1999 when Weinandy was called by the state organization for the Miss Michigan pageant to become a part of the team. At first Weinandy was hesitant thinking, “I’m probably not going to do this…there are a lot of stereotypes” but somehow over the course of the meeting, his mind and his life was changed forever when he said yes.

Weinandy has coached nine Miss Michigans with several women making it to the top 10.
Weinandy drills the pageant hopefuls with prospective interview quest-ions, helps them build their plat-form and gets them out into the public eye.

This last part of the job includes Weinandy sending out brochures to different institutions telling them about his girl and from there, appearances and public speeches are booked.

But it was not until this year that one of Weinandy’s girls made it all the way. Although Haglund was as close to perfect as possible during the event, from her gown and swimsuit, to her talent and interview, Weinandy was still filled with anticipation and hope for Haglund saying, “It’s almost like preparing for the Olympics…you don’t want to change a young lady, but you want her to peak.”

When Haglund won, Weinandy found himself filled with pride, and his cell phone overloaded with text mess-ages and voicemails from Aquinas students.

This particular Miss Michigan had a very large following at Aquinas, as Haglund had visited the campus with Weinandy several times. Weinandy was overjoyed to learn that so many students had tuned in on their Saturday night to watch and support Haglund.

Although Weinandy, who does all his pageant consulting on a volunteer basis, has helped for some local pageants, he has remained loyal to Miss Michigan. He called this particular win “Amazing…we won the Super Bowl.”

Weinandy offers this piece of wisdom to all students and dream chasers alike, “If you work hard and prepare and practice, you can do anything.”