Sydney Taylor was crowned 'Miss Louisiana' on Saturday, March 30.
Sydney Taylor was crowned 'Miss Louisiana' on Saturday, March 30.
The clock was ticking for Sydney Taylor in the summer of 2019.
She had just wrapped up her high school basketball and softball career at Doyle High School, secured her sheepskin, and was ready to prepare for her matriculation at LSU.
But there was one other thing she had signed up to do: beauty pageants.
Beauty pageants?! For the athletic young woman who had never professed to be a “girly girl”?
It was really Stacy Picou’s idea for Taylor to trade in her softball shoes for a sequined sash. Picou was Taylor’s third-grade teacher at Doyle, and she figured the new high school grad just might have the right stuff for beauty competitions. Taylor didn’t necessarily agree at first, but she did agree to give it a go.
The only hitch was that she just had one month to learn the ropes.
There were lingering questions in Taylor’s mind about following through with her commitment, especially when realizing her future pageant success was held squarely in the hands of a Lafayette funeral home owner – yes, an undertaker – named Ross Walters.
It turns out that besides dealing with the dead, this peculiar pal of Picou’s was also a socialite, dance impresario and organizer of the Miss Teen Lafayette pageant, a qualifier for the Miss Teen Louisiana competition.
With the preparation window quickly coming to a close, Taylor commuted to Lafayette several times a week to practice her pageant stride, improve her posture, learn how to exude an aura of confidence and understand how to answer those pesky pageant questions on stage with throngs of people staring you down.
The intense pop quiz questioning is still something Taylor is attempting to improve, but her ability was strong enough to claim the Miss Teen Lafayette title in her very first effort. Several months after that, she won the Miss Teen Louisiana contest and went on to place fourth runner-up in the Miss Teen USA competition held at Graceland in Memphis.
Last Saturday at the Jefferson Performing Arts Center in Metairie, Taylor was crowned Miss Louisiana and will travel to Hollywood this August to represent her state at the Miss USA competition.
Meanwhile, she’ll be boning up on her impromptu public speaking skills. While she was accustomed to answering questions posed by local newspaper reporters after high school softball games, those inquiries about softball were, well, softballs.
“That was just, more or less, answering questions about what happened in the game,” she said. “But when you have no idea what they’re going to ask you, it makes you nervous. I had never done any public speaking, but Mr. Walters told me it was less about what you’re saying and more about how you’re saying it. You let your personality shine through the words you’re saying. As long as you’re showing your personality, that’s the main thing. But I still get nervous.”
She said the pageant interviews often make her start shaking and struggling to keep calm with the adrenaline already coursing through her veins: “I just tell myself to let God speak through me, and that makes me feel better about it.”
Walters taught his protege other useful skills before her maiden pageant, after initially assessing that her walking and turning style looked like a cross between a baby giraffe and a pee wee league football player.
The two conducted their practice sessions in the funeral home’s chapel as Walters taught her how to own the runway, how to hold her poise in six-inch heels under the lights, and how to exude elegance and panache on the stage.
“I had never done anything even remotely girly,” she said.
The pressure cooker will commence once again this summer as she prepares for the Miss USA title while also planning to enter law school in the fall after graduating from LSU with a degree in accounting last year.
The next time she takes the stage, Taylor hopes she’ll be asked about her chosen public service platform, which she calls Play with a Purpose. While she hasn’t officially organized a non-profit entity, she has already started collecting used athletic equipment to donate to future stars. Her garage in Livingston is full of shin guards, catcher’s masks and baseball gloves and bats.
The 22-year-old daughter of Billy and Courtney Taylor has kept busy coaching softball at Doyle and for a travel program over the past three seasons, and often encounters students who can’t afford to buy the proper equipment to follow their passion for athletic activities.
“I started coaching and realizing how there are many great athletes out there and they just need a little help,” she said. “Sports help young people develop a number of skills and the things they need to thrive in life. I want them to go out and play and reach their full potential, not have to quit just because they didn’t have the right equipment.”
While many eyes were on the LSU Lady Tigers last weekend as they made their run to the elite-eight of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, there was another crowd gathered in Livingston Mayor J.T. Taylor’s living room watching a different kind of competition with their peepers glued to the TV screen.
A large group of some 30 friends and family of the beauty queen were watching her compete in the Miss Louisiana pageant.
“We had a big crowd at the house and were just pulling for her and having a great time watching her represent her hometown,” said J.T. Taylor. “We all knew she had a shot at it and she’d be tough to beat.”
The reigning Miss Louisiana isn’t directly related to the mayor, but their families are close enough that she calls him Uncle Mayor J.T.
“We’re proud when any of our citizens do well, but I’m especially proud of Sydney because I’ve seen her grow up and play sports and succeed in school and now on to this,” he said. “And she’s just such a sweet girl and a fine human being. When she puts her mind to it, she can do anything. She was always determined to be the best and make good grades. She knows she may fail, but she’s always unafraid to try new things.”
With the Miss Louisiana title in her grasp, Taylor will travel to California in August to compete in the Miss USA event.
“It’s great to have the support of everyone in Livingston,” she said, “even though I had to represent Lafayette because that was the only qualifier I could enter. I know everybody has my back at home and that’s a real honor.”
