If there is one thing Coppell High School junior Sunya Ajani can talk about for hours, it is crowns. Both the kind that goes on your head, and the kind that goes on your teeth. 

And if dental healthcare isn’t the first topic you would think to discuss while wearing an evening gown, Ajani, whose social impact initiative entitled My Shiny Teeth and Me won her first place at the at-large Miss Teen Lewisville pageant on March 12, would be more than happy to explain it to you clad in vibrant and bejeweled crimson. 

“People undermine dental healthcare, especially people who have readily available access to it or who never have to think about it,” Ajani said. “It’s easy to forget about your teeth when there’s nothing wrong with them.”

Meanwhile, Ajani has her fair share of experience. Braces, cavities, fillings, crowns and “anything else you can think of,” she jokes. 

While there’s been some dread towards the operations, she can’t discount her own privilege to have had access to them in the first place. 

“In Coppell, it seems like you drive down Denton Tap and there’s at least four or five dentists or orthodontists right there,” Ajani said. “But then in rural areas people have to drive an hour or two just to find dental access, which, if everything isn’t alright with their teeth, is an ordeal to deal with.”

The social impact initiative, which each pageant delegate presents as part of their competition, is just one component of what Ajani’s pageant advisor Martina Larry calls an “all-day ordeal,” along with fitness, evening gown interview and talent sections, on the road to the crown. 

For most delegates, though, the goal is not the crown itself but what is behind it. At the end of the day, delegates in the teen categories are competing for scholarships awarded by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization Miss America’s Teen.

“The education side of it was really the biggest part of my attraction towards pageantry,” Ajani said. “I started doing more research on Miss America and Miss Texas, and I liked what they stood for, and that it’s not just a beauty pageant.”

Of course, the allure of history being made in the pageant world also drew in Ajani.

The history in question? Dallas resident Averie Bishop, 26, becoming the first Asian American woman to win the title of Miss Texas America on June 25. And, just one week later, 28-year-old R’Bonney Gabriel becoming the first Asian American woman to win the title of Miss Texas USA. Gabriel has since become Miss Universe 2022.

“We were following the first Asian American women winning these titles on Instagram and TikTok together,” said junior Nandita Sanjay, who holds the title of Miss Teen Denton. “Sunya was like, ‘If I do a pageant, will you do it with me?’ And it started from there as a joke. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t a joke. And we were doing it.”

Sanjay received the title of Miss Teen Denton in March in the same at-large competition at which Ajani received Miss Teen Lewisville, a virtually held pageant where contestants turn in videos of their interviews and application packages. After winning their crowns, both were selected by Larry, the advisor for the Carrollton and Denton Miss pageants. 

“I haven’t had Sunya very long, and she’s already been an extremely interesting and exciting person,” Larry said. “She’s jumped in running, and she’s excited about her title. She’s taking the initiative to get out in the community. Some delegates get the crown and that’s it, that’s where they stop, but she’s actually willing and wanting to get out into the community.”

Time commitment, after all, is something Ajani understands. Along with pageantry, she is a part of HOSA, a junior lieutenant of varsity color guard and president of the Texas Association of Future Educators (TAFE). 

“Teaching and science are my two biggest passions,” Ajani said. “I know when I grow up, I’m either going to work in healthcare and come back to be a teacher, or teaching health science classes directly. Working with little kids has made what I do in pageantry with dental health in rural areas even more important to me. The more I think about it, the more I feel the need to learn and research. Pageantry really gave me the opportunity to open my eyes to the issue.”

While she qualified for nationals in TAFE, Ajani, who also student-teaches in Jaimie Graves’s eighth grade science class at Coppell Middle School North, is skipping the competition to compete at the Miss Texas Teen pageant in June at the Eisemann Center in Richardson.

“Sunya has always been very smart, but what I’ve noticed in her throughout high school is seeing her blossom into a leader,” said Teacher Education and Training teacher Raneta Ansley, who has taught Ajani since middle school. “We started TAFE at CHS last year, and she jumped in and wanted to be president and did the agenda and set up. She didn’t let the fact that she was a sophomore intimidate her, but she also knows how to fit right in and work well with everyone.”

Pageantry, Ajani says, is the perfect environment to blossom. Case in point: late September, the Miss Coppell/Fort Worth pageant. Ajani, the third candidate, sat outside her interview as a rush of nerves threatened to overtake her. 

“I’m not a big prayer person, but at that moment, when all the girls around me just came over to me and they all wanted me to succeed so badly, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders,” Ajani said. “I hadn’t even done my interview yet, but it was probably the most stress-free I’ve ever had.”

And it is that warmness, the sanctity of the environment and love for the organization that makes Ajani jump to defend pageantry from those she says, “don’t understand that it is the farthest thing from the stereotype people have created.”

“The initial reaction is a condescending ‘cool’ most of the time,” Ajani said. “People think that girls in pageants don’t have the brains or they only have the looks and that’s it. With my experience in Miss America, that cannot be farther from the truth. The girls who I do pageants with, they’re the smartest, sweetest and have the biggest hearts and characters. We’re people who have succeeded in organizations, in school, in community service. We’re more than pretty.”

Follow Saniya (@SaniyaKoppikar) and @CHSCampusNews on Twitter.