Purdue twirler Stacy Scheibelhut’s smile makes her
a winner
With
a bright twinkle in her eye, and a personality colored by charm and confidence,
Purdue University twirler Stacy Scheibelhut loves goals. And when she sets
one there’s no stopping her.
This June the 19-year-old athletic training major from
Auburn, Ind., is among the youngest of the 22 contestants competing for the
title of Miss Indiana in the Miss America pageant. Judges at the famous beauty/scholarship
pageant will most likely notice that Stacy’s smile is a little off kilter.
But the reason it’s that way may well be the reason Stacy’s enjoyed success
all her life.
When she was just three, Stacy first started displaying symptoms of Bell’s palsy, a viral condition that affects the nerves in the face and causes facial paralysis. Usually, Bell’s palsy doesn’t surface until individuals are in their 30s or 40s, and may last for a few years and disappear.
But for Stacy, the fact that her smile has a bit of
a tilt, that she can only raise one eyebrow and has trouble winking has been
part of who she is all her life. As often happens to kids who are in any way
different, Stacy endured unpleasant jokes and hurtful nicknames in middle
school and remembers crying herself to sleep.
Through it all her parents didn’t try to shelter her
or subtly steer her away from pursuits that would put her in the public eye.
“They never said ‘You can’t do this. If it’s what you want to do, do it.’
They helped me a lot,” Stacy recalls.
“When I was six I saw a parade where there was twirling
and I told my mom I wanted to do that.” And she did - taking lessons, joining
a competition group called the Sapphire Stars, competing individually and
joining DeKalb High School’s color guard.
Twirling was one of the first things that gave her
a sense of being someone special. By the time Alisha Kuckartz, former Purdue
Golden Girl and advisor for Purdue’s twirlers, met her, Stacy possessed a
tenacious passion for life and a healthy self-concept. “When we were conducting
interviews no one mentioned the fact she had Bell’s palsy, but she brought
it out and said ‘This is a part of me. If anything it’s helped me to really
strive to be the best in anything I do.’ ”
Kuckartz, who’s been around twirlers and performers
her whole life, considers Stacy’s attitude special. “Usually, from what I’ve
seen, if people have something physically different they’re kind of on the
defensive. She’s not at all. Stacy’s really confident. If she sees something
she’s kind of interested in, she just goes after it.”
Stacy’s twirling talent helped her win a scholarship
and the title of Miss Northeast (Indiana) in April and she’ll put it on stage
again in June at the Miss Indiana pageant in Terre Haute.
Although she’s been twirling for more than a dozen
years, Stacy still finds it difficult to pinpoint just exactly what it is
that makes her love it. “It’s probably the difficulty and the accomplishment
of reaching a certain level,” she says.
“I love it so much I can’t describe it.”
In the fall of 2001, Stacy started the fall of her
freshman year as an alternate on the Purdue “All-American” Marching Band’s
twirling line. “Instead of giving up and going to the sidelines, she worked
super hard. She’s always tried to improve herself even when things were a
little rough because the line was doing tricks that were difficult for her,”
says Kuckartz.
Stacy’s perseverance helped her master those tricks,
learn even harder ones and banish her “alternate” standing. Being on the field
at Ross-Ade Stadium wasn’t something she was going to pass up. “It’s really
amazing. How the twirlers run through the whole band (as it enters Ross-Ade)
is scary but exciting, and at the same time it’s really kind of cool!”
Always interested in trying something new, Stacy said
yes easily to pageant competition when her best friend Lyndsey Johnson suggested
they do it to win scholarship funds. Competing in a local pageant leading
to Indiana State Fair Queen, “I got the role model award and that meant a
lot to me. It (the pageant) was a new experience and I loved it,” she says.
This year they entered the Miss Northeast Pageant.
After Lyndsey got first runner-up, Stacy relaxed, thinking someone else would
be named the winner. When she heard her name, “my jaw just dropped. I just
froze like I didn’t know what to do. My mom was screaming in the audience.
I really had no idea what I was doing. I still don’t. It was pretty amazing,
pretty neat.”
In Terre Haute, she’ll be one of the youngest contestants
at 19; young women can compete up to age 24. So, again Stacy figures she won’t
win but that’s not so important. “I get $500 (in scholarship money) just for
going and I get to meet all the other girls. And I get to twirl. I want to
show others what twirling is because a lot of kids don’t know about it.”
Kuckartz says she’s got the right attitude for competition.
“Stacy’s always just herself. She never tries to be anything but what she
is, while some girls might try to say the ‘right’ words or what they think
the judges want to hear. She says ‘Take me as I am or don’t take me.’ I think
that’s a neat trait.”
No matter what happens in Terre Haute, “she’ll leave
that pageant with a smile on her face and will say “I had fun.’ She’ll give
it her best effort and maintain a positive attitude about what she’s done.”
For Stacy, all the opportunities that twirling and
pageant competition have brought her have simply underscored what she’s long
believed – that she doesn’t have a disability.