BILLINGS – Community service is part of the Miss Montana experience, and those involved in the pageant worked in Billings on Saturday.
After an orientation, this year’s contestants and last year’s winners volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity Restore.
The store reopened on Tuesday after a fire damaged its old building on 1st Avenue North earlier this year.
Miss Montana, Laura Haller from Helena, and Cammy Heck, Miss Montana’s Outstanding Teen, contributed some community service along with this year’s contestants.
Miss America is about scholarship and service.
“It’s taught me that service is the most rewarding thing a person can possibly do,” Heck said about being Miss Montana’s Outstanding Teen. “And it’s something I want to carry out the rest of my life and definitely continue to be an advocate for mental health. It’s been the most rewarding year of my life.”
“It’s been a really great opportunity,” Haller said. “Definitely once in a lifetime type thing that I’m really happy that I got involved with because it’s given me so much to build my future off of. And even though I’m the one doing service to the state, I feel I’ve gotten so much more back from that.”
Scheduled for June 16 through June 22 are a whole week of festivities and the Miss Montana pageant.
-David Jay reporting for MTN News
