"I'm about to blog about you and your awesomeness..."

That's what I just said to Alyse Eady, Miss Arkansas and 1st RU to Miss America, but probably cooler - my roomie at Miss A. :) hehe just kidding.  Being 1st RU to Miss A is waaay cooler...and doing it as a ventriloquist.

Well, I got really lucky at Miss America because I had an awesome roommate. You spend a lot of time with this person, and they're the person around during your "downtime" or "personal time," so it's not so personal.  But that's the reason Alyse and I were such good roommates - we had a great time talking and getting to know each other, and we had a great time not talking, sitting in our beds texting our families, directors and boyfriends, not worrying about entertaining each other.  Many of the roommates become very close at Miss A and then rarely see each other because they live half way across the country.  Well Alyse and I do, but because of her awesomeness and ventriloquism entertainment, Alyse came out to NYC the two weekends following Miss A for media, so we got to keep seeing each other!

The first weekend was David Letterman, where she got to perform "I Want to Be a Cowboy Sweetheart," her talent from Miss America, and [kinda] receive flowers from David Letterman - hahaha it was a wonderfully awkward moment that got a lot of laughs on TV. She impressed the other guests obviously, because each of them mentioned her in their interviews with Mr. Letterman.  I was able to go to the show taping and watch it live in the audience - so exciting! Afterwards to celebrate, we went with her traveling companion to Jersey Boys on Broadway then watched the David Lettermen show together later that evening.  Back to Arkansas.

Back to NYC! This time, Alyse came to perform and interview LIVE on Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.  Then Egypt happened.  So instead of performing live, we waited, she rehearsed, we took a break to meet up with Kaitlin Davis and Maria DeSantis for Crumbs Cupcakes, and came back at about 10:30pm to tape her segment for a later air date, TBD.  It was so neat because I got to be right there on set with her and watch the whole thing live.  Rachel Maddow LOVES Alyse Eady and her talent.  haha She is obsessed.  Right after Miss America, she played videos of her talent from Miss A and from Miss Teen Arkansas (click to view).  And now that Egypt has settled, Rachel Maddow featured the Alyse Eady segment as the Moment of Joy for the week (Friday 2/11/11).  She got to sing a new song, and this time interview as well which is just as wonderful to watch.

Afterwards, since it was a taped segment rather than a live show, we got to hang out with Rachel a bit and chat.  I was really honored to meet her, yes because she's Rachel Maddow, but also because Alyse and I have a friendship where she wanted me to be there and meet Rachel, knowing that I wasn't there to try to steal her thunder, but instead this was something we were experiencing excitedly together.  That's a really cool thing.  We had a great talk about my platform but then the real question came.  "So how do you pose like that? Can you teach me??"  And so this video ensued...

Alyse Eady, current Miss Arkansas and first runner up in 2011 Miss America pageant,

and Claire Buffie, Miss New York, teach Rachel Maddow how to pose for a photograph like a model.

There are other behind the scenes videos of Alyse on set as well. What a cool experience!!

•  Alyse explains how to work "Rosie"  -- haha with Rachel and my conversation in the background.
•  Executive Producer gives a sneak peek