Miss New York Talks Tag

For women who love competition, pageants and laser tag have more in common than you might think! While getting ready to help crown a new Miss Finger Lakes into our sisterhood I had some time to chat with Sydney Park, the reigning Miss New York (and 3rd runner-up to Miss America) and the topic of competition came up in the conversation.

We of course discussed pageant competitions, as just last month Sydney placed in the top five at Miss America. We also talked about how laser tag is what I do now to satisfy the desire for competition in my post-pageant life and how my interest in tournament competition is what really got me started along my laser tag journey.

As I am never one to miss an opportunity to promote laser tag, I handed her a microphone and asked her to share her thoughts on the subject. :)

On route to this event, I simply couldn’t resist stopping for a game of Cybertag.

But the rest of the weekend was all about growing the sisterhood. For those who don’t know, I was Miss Finger Lakes back in the day. I was honored to help “crown it down” with this group of former Miss Finger Lakes titleholders as we welcomed our newest MFL, local morning show anchor and reporter Chelsea Lovell who was just crowned Miss Finger Lakes 2022.

I thank Miss New York for being part of the night with us.

So what does this have to do with laser tag? Well, pageants and laser tag really do have something special in common (besides both being a great competitive outlet for women like me). When you are part of one of these communities you have “family” wherever you go. I know people literally all across the country because of these activities. In fact, when I completed my 50-state laser tag journey in Texas a couple of years ago, who was by my side (besides George Carter)? It was my Miss Finger Lakes sister Lorna Rose who came out to support me and cover the event for Sportscon.

Pageants and laser tag recently intersected for me in another way when I ran into one of my New York State Maple Queen sisters at an event.

It was about time for me to update my tag apparel and I wanted to get some new gear before heading off to the next Tag 4 A Cause event scheduled for February 5th at Flight Zone Trampoline Park in Gillette, Wyoming. And because pageant sisters are a strong network and always try to support each other I went to former maple queen Deidra Hill at Delco Creative for the custom embroidery work on my fleece and sport jacket. The new gear just arrived and her work is amazing!

If you need custom apparel work she is a pro and you can reach her at www.delcocreative.com.

Teaming up with Deidra and reminiscing about our days holding the New York State Maple Queen title made me nostalgic to pull out this little piece of history.… well, of course I am talking about the tiara, lol, and NOT that other amazing piece of history I am holding!

Ok, yes this is actually taking the long way around just to hint about something very cool that you will hear about shortly. ;) Call it my little Easter egg buried in this post.

However, bringing it all full circle, good preparation is one of the keys to success in both pageantry and laser tag, so knowing that Flight Zone is holding a LaserBall event the same day as Tag 4 A Cause gave me a reason to seek out some practice so that I can arrive as prepared as possible. I can switch gears very quickly and I want to thank this group of Fun Warehouse members for helping me get some practice games in to feel a little more prepared with LaserBall before my trip.