UIndy communication major will use pageant attention to promote community service

Katie Stam has heard her share of cynical comments about “beauty pageants,” even from close relatives, but she’s quick to correct any misconceptions.

“The Miss America pageant is a scholarship pageant,” says Stam, a University of Indianapolis senior who will be vying for that storied crown in January after winning the Miss Indiana title on June 21. “It’s so much more than standing onstage and being poised.”

Stam, who turns 22 in July, has the resume to back up that statement, being listed on the honor roll and active in student government at UIndy. But as it turns out, she is especially good at being poised onstage, as well as on camera.

In her college career, she’s been one of the top broadcasting students in the Department of Communication, acting first as news director and more recently as operations manager for startup campus cable station UIndy TV. This spring, she helped lead her classmates to an underdog win in the Indiana Association of School Broadcasters annual college competition, seizing the TV School of the Year title from much larger competitors. Stam herself took home first-place honors in both the TV News Anchor and TV News Package categories. She also was among six UIndy students to win national recognition this year in the Broadcast Education Association’s annual competition, sharing second place in the TV Hard News Reporting category.

Communication instructor Scott Uecker, general manager of UIndy TV and university-owned radio station WICR-FM, says Stam has shown rare talents as an anchor, reporter, interviewer and writer.

“Occasionally we see a student who makes us say, ‘I’m going to be working for her someday,’” says Uecker, himself a broadcast news veteran. “She is definitely one of those students.”

Perhaps Stam’s greatest skill, Uecker says, is leadership. He recalls her asking him to leave the room one day this spring so she could give her classmates a private pep talk while preparing for the state competition.

“Her peers have so much respect for her,” he says. “She just makes everyone around her better, including me.”

Stam is interning this summer at WISH-TV, as she did last summer at WTHR-TV, shadowing reporters, helping with interviews and recording her own take on the day’s events. When she graduates in December – a semester early – with hopes of working in TV news, she will have resume tapes from the two top-rated operations in Indianapolis.

“That will really give me an edge,” she says. “And getting out into the industry six months before everybody else does is quite an advantage.”

Her other campus activities have included chairing the student government’s Service and Philanthropy Committee. As such, she has organized fund-raisers to aid the homeless and the Ronald McDonald House at Riley Hospital for Children. In October, she will direct UIndy’s annual Super Saturday of Service, when hundreds of students perform volunteer work around the city at sites recommended by the United Way.

“My whole theory about community service is making it easy for people,” says Stam, a Seymour High School graduate and daughter of Keith and Tracy Stam. “A lot of people don’t get involved because they think it’s too hard.”

It’s no surprise, then, that community service is Stam’s platform issue as a pageant delegate, and she looks forward to the increased visibility she has earned.

“The Miss America Organization gives you an opportunity to reach a larger audience,” she says.

It’s more surprising that she has found the time to participate in pageants at all, much less be successful at it. Nonetheless, Stam has seen a string of wins and near-wins at the local, regional and national levels, including the 2005 Indiana Junior Miss title.

This past year, she decided to go for the gold. First she targeted the Miss Duneland pageant, which has an open entry policy and is based in Michigan City, where she has close friends. That win took her to the Miss Indiana pageant in Zionsville, during which she sang a comic aria for the talent portion of the competition. Now she is living out a childhood dream, one she shared with a close cousin.

“Every little girl wants to be a princess,” she admits. “We always saw Miss America as the perfect American icon. We held pageants in my cousin’s basement, making crowns out of cereal boxes.”

Another UIndy student also placed in the Top 10 of this year’s Miss Indiana pageant: Megan Meadors, who is pursuing a master’s degree in occupational therapy. Stam described Meadors as a pageant veteran and “an amazing person” who was generous with advice and support for other contestants.

UIndy has provided at least one other Miss Indiana who proceeded to the Miss America pageant. Music major Karen Louise Rogers claimed the title right after graduating in 1973.

The reality Stam now faces is exciting but challenging. She already has a dozen parades and other public appearances scheduled as Miss Indiana, and that list will surely grow before she heads to Las Vegas for the Miss America competition, with finals to be televised January 24. She also will spend a few weeks later this year living with the other 51 contestants for the taping of “Miss America: Reality Check,” a reality miniseries that debuted on the TLC channel this year in advance of the 2008 pageant.

Meanwhile, she’ll have to juggle another few months as a student, and that’s where the scholarship part comes in. Stam’s pageant winnings, including a Miss Indiana total of more than $10,000, have funded much of her college education.

“I’ve already got my last semester paid for,” she says. “I’m graduating debt-free, because of the assistance I’ve received from this organization and other scholarships.”