Instructions for Typing the Platform Issue Statement

Please remember.  This ONE (1) page, single-spaced document combined with the Contestant’s Resume, will comprise your entire application for this job.  The judges will receive exactly what is submitted.  

Local Contestants – Explain to the judges what your chosen platform is, how you will promote it, and why it is important for the local pageant to embrace this platform.

1.  Go to the word processing program of your computer.
2.  Start a “new” document
3.  Set margins for 1" on all four sides.  The font style may not be any smaller than “10” and no larger than “12” point type using the Times New Roman font style.  
4.  With the justification set for left, type “Name:” in bold.  Following the colon (:), hit the space bar twice.  Then, type your name.  
5.  Double space down.  Set your justification to “center”.  They type in Bold and underline the title of your Platform.
6.  Double space down.  Write what you feel is critical for the judge’s to know about your platform and why it is necessary for you to have the job of Miss Grayson/Heart of the Parks Outstanding Teen to promote this issue.  What you write will be what the judges know about your platform, your role in successfully dealing with this issue, and the role the Miss Grayson/Heart of the Parks Outstanding Teen Organization may play in your plan.
7.  This essay may include some of the following items (this is not to be meant as an exhaustive list):
Ø	A clear definition of the platform and the specific issues you wish to address
Ø	A plan on how you have or will create awareness of the platform
Ø	The way in which you have or will change attitudes regarding the issue
Ø	The way in which you have or will change behaviors related to this issue
Ø The way in which your platform issue will move the Miss Grayson/Heart of the Parks Outstanding Teen Organization forward
Ø	Your media plans
Ø	Your marketing strategy
Ø	How you propose to fund your ideas/plans
Ø	Any significant accomplishments you have made in regard to your issue.
8.	At the bottom of the page, you MUST set the justification to the right.  Type a line of 26 spaces.  Below that line, you must type Signature/Date.  Once you have printed the document, you must sign and date this document.  

Name:  Jane Doe

Celebrating Cultural Diversity and Inclusiveness

It is imperative that this nation face and embrace its cultural diversity.   While many people have talked about this issue, I believe that most of them have only paid lip service to the true necessity of what needs to be addressed related to this issue.  There is a false truth in merely accepting and tolerating cultural diversity.  I intend to prove that in order to accept and understand people of other cultures; one must be willing to step out of a personal cultural comfort zone and identify the origin of their prejudice.  I will specifically focus on three areas:  Children, Communities, and Businesses.

The title of Miss America’s Outstanding Teen, combined with the national media already looking at the surface of this issue, will allow me to create the national awareness that must exist.  Currently, the term “Cultural Diversity” is well known in the halls of institutions of higher learner and, perhaps, even in the public school classroom because of the need for some to be politically correct.  But, in order for us to make a true change in attitudes and behaviors of Americans, we must move beyond talk and into action and policy changes.

My plan is to motivate the media and to partner with the National Conference for Community and Justice.  This organization has chapters in every major city in the nation and, in many cases, those chapters have community leaders involved who can, with encouragement and challenging, bring this issue out of hiding and into the public light in each of those communities.  

Obviously the media and the NCCJ already exist. However, what is lacking is a lighting rod to draw attention to this issue.  This is where the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen Program steps into the lead.  What better role is there for Miss America’s Outstanding Teen than to be an agent of change in organizing our nation to accept our differences and to create an environment that values each person on individual characteristics rather than on stereotypes or assumptions?  
Miss America’s Outstanding Teen should not be seen just as a young woman who cuts ribbons and appears in parades.  Our country’s ethnic make-up is changing rapidly and our citizen’s fear of terrorism can explode already existing, but deeply hidden prejudices.  I want to be the leader that this state needs.  

This nation needs this issue addressed now and through the already existing NCCJ and its local and state organizations combined with the power of Miss America’s Outstanding Teen, we can make a concrete difference now, which will change the direction and the future of our state and nation.

__________________________
Signature/Date