She got the crown. Now what?

After Keri Balnis was crowned the winner at the Miss Wantagh pageant in July, she was asked, “What’s next?” With a gleam in her eye and a shy smile, the Wantagh High School senior answered with ease.

“I want to generate a mentoring program to build children’s confidence and make them the best they can be; to not let anything hold them back,” she said.

With a coat of her own confidence and a sparkling title, the new Miss Wantagh, along with the runners-up and ambassadors of the program, are ready to make their mark on the Wantagh community.

July 1 marked the 60th year of the pageant, which debuted in 1956 when the first Miss Wantagh was crowned. Located in the high school auditorium, seven members competed for this year’s title (six seniors and one junior), which took both a lot of time and dedication.

The girls met weekly at the Wantagh Public Library with Ella Stevens, the Miss Wantagh coordinator, to review walking in public, memorizing a personal biography and deciding on what service project to choose.

“Ella pushes you to be the best that you can be,” said second runner-up, Nyatasha Jackowicz. “In that way we became a sisterhood.”

The girls worked hard in preparation for the competition and to make sure that they could give back to the community in a big way. The pageant was also a huge learning process for many of the participants.

“Just helping people is very rewarding,” said ambassador Emma Carey. “Seeing all of these people and meeting elected officials, who thank us for coming, is very satisfying. It’s great knowing that it means so much to these important people in the community; just teenage girls showing their face can mean so much.”

Miss Wantagh and the other members of the program not only put together their own personal projects, but also try to stay aware of what is happening within the community.

Some of the girls have sat in on County Legislature meetings as well as town board meetings to observe everything ranging from the distribution of awards and citations to personal concerns within the town.

“Over this past summer, we went to all of our elected officials’ buildings and they gave us advice of how we could become even better leaders,” Balnis said.