Bentonville preteen pageant winner Ava Mae Masters takes inclusion to heart

Ava Mae Masters says she has a heart for inclusion.

"I'm super, super passionate about kids with special needs and kids with disabilities," she affirms.

The Centerton 12-year-old says she made inclusion central to her platform for the USA National Miss Pageant in Orlando, Fla., over the summer.

Ava Mae was crowned July 10 as the 2021 USA National Preteen.

The USA National Miss organization exists to enrich the lives of young women through a pageant experience that leaves them inspired and empowered, according to the organization's website, and helps participants gain confidence and life skills to embrace their full leadership potential.

The pageants are less about beauty and more about the whole contestant, Ava Mae says.

"There are some pageants that are more about the glitz and the glam," she says. "We get to sit down and talk to the judges so that they can see more about us and more about who are they going to crown and why are they crowning this girl, rather than just walking on a stage and seeing how pretty they are."

Ava Mae participated in an interview, an evening gown and a runway competition as part of the pageant.

"I remember just freaking out and looking at my mom and just bursting into tears," Ava Mae says about winning the pageant. "It was so amazing."

This was her third straight year competing in a USA National Miss Pageant. She placed in the top three in the Princess division in 2019 and sixth in the Preteen division in 2020, she says.

Six national queens are crowned annually at the pageant, according to the USA National Miss website.

Ava Mae competed this year against 50 other girls ages 10 to 12 from across the country, says Sondra Masters, Ava Mae's mother. She qualified for the competition after winning USA National Miss Arkansas Preteen in December, Masters says.

The seventh-grader at Lincoln Junior High School in Bentonville began competing in pageants when she was 7 after seeing a friend participate in one, Ava Mae says.

"I'm a dancer too, so I love being on stage. I love getting to talk to people," she says. "I'll talk to old people in nursing homes or babies in preschool."

Living messaging

Karen Campbell of Bentonville is the director for the One-2-One ministry at Fellowship Bible Church in Rogers. She says she's had an opportunity to see how important inclusion is to Ava Mae firsthand.

The ministry serves about 50 people of all ages with disabilities weekly and offers support and structure to help them be successful. Ava Mae has volunteered with the ministry for two years, Campbell says.

"We don't really have fifth-graders who come in to serve with us with our kids very often, partly because they're not mature enough and partly because they don't have that vision," she says. "She had the vision and the maturity and the gifting as a 10-year-old to come in and say, 'This is what I want to do. This is where I want to make a difference,'" Campbell says of Ava Mae.

Ava Mae has been partnered with a child with Down syndrome for the last two years and has a remarkable impact on the girl, Campbell says.

"She just gets this little girl to do stuff that we can't get her to do," she says with a laugh. "She's really naturally gifted. She just has a way of giving choices that the little girl really responds to very well."

Inclusion has been a significant part of her platform for the last three years, Ava Mae says, noting she started a nonprofit about a year ago called Inclusion Begins With I, which aims to encourage individuals to increase inclusion.

"My platform actually started because of a little boy with special needs that I met in the second grade named Henry," she says. "He was bullied and mistreated because of his disabilities, and I didn't like that."

Ava Mae says she's talked to more than 3,000 students in Northwest Arkansas, online and in person. She participated in a kindness tour for Arkansas schools in support of the nonprofit group's efforts last year.

"I teach the whole class and talk to the teachers a little bit about what they can do in their classrooms to promote inclusion and kindness," she says.

Ava Mae says she uses her personal experiences and observations.

"I'm in the seventh grade, so there is bullying going around," she says. "I can experience firsthand what it's like to be bullied and what it's like to see somebody else be bullied."

Inclusion Begins With I also has advocates in 12 other states who promote inclusion messaging on social media and in schools. The nonprofit is developing a website to further promote inclusion and encourage advocate participation, Ava Mae says.

Queenly duties

Inclusion is also a significant factor for the USA National Miss Pageant, which has compassion, kindness and Earth as parts of its core values, according to the pageant's website.

When interviewed for this story, Ava Mae was planning to participate in a beach cleanup alongside the pageant's other five queens and the community in Jacksonville, Fla., to further encourage those values.

Participating in the cleanup is one of many responsibilities the preteen has as a pageant winner, Ava Mae says.

"It is a job," she says. "I have to constantly promote USA National Miss on Instagram and TikTok and all different social medias, as well as just promoting it here in Arkansas."

Ava Mae also won a prize package worth more than $100,000 -- mostly clothes, jewelry and trips -- as part of the competition, Masters says.

Some of the trips include funding, airfare and accommodations to Hollywood, Fla., Hilton Head, S.C., Hollywood, Calif., Orlando, Fla., and Atlanta, she says.

"She also travels to other state pageants to make appearances through the year and has been to Erie, Pa., already," Masters says.

Ava Mae also received a three-year modeling contract with New York-based Model Management Group, has been made the face of formal wear retailer Flirt Prom and Pageant of Atlanta, has been awarded more than $5,000 in scholarships and is receiving ongoing coaching and a year of public relations and management, Masters says.

Ava Mae says she doesn't plan to stop competing in pageants any time soon.

"This is something that I want to do forever," she says.