The glamour and grind of preparing for Miss Georgia
Aleks Arwood beams onstage, wearing eyewateringly high heels and a red, custom Sherri Hill gown. Her dark green eyes gaze down at the judges, then the audience as she flashes a smile and strikes her final pose downstage.
Her demeanor is confident, her moves are coordinated and her intentions are clear; She’s ready to be the next Miss Georgia.
It’s June 20, the final day of the Miss Georgia Scholarship Competition. Nine long days have passed at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts in Columbus.
Fifty-five women were vying to win this preliminary to Miss America, with many being repeat competitors. Arwood, a recent University of Georgia journalism graduate, has been with the Miss Georgia Organization since 2022, making this her fourth trip to the RiverCenter stage.
Outsiders may only see a crown and a sash, but it takes years of preparation and drive just to reach Miss Georgia. Earlier in the month, Arwood provided a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into preparing for the competition.
The ‘season of becoming’
Aleks, a Thomasville native, trained as a pre-professional ballerina with South Georgia Ballet in her youth, but never participated in pageants.
After high school, she attended the University of Mississippi, but decided to transfer to UGA as she didn’t feel like she belonged there.
But even after coming back to Georgia, she felt lost. Her mother, Michele, noticed she had stopped dancing, and urged her to perform at the Miss Albany competition.
“She loves being in her body as a dancer, so I said, ‘You know what, you need to go dance, just go find a place to do that,’” Michele said.
Aleks was crowned 2023’s Miss Albany, and has since held the titles of Miss Greater Atlanta in 2024 and Miss Northwest Georgia in 2025.
“When I was Miss Greater Atlanta, I was top five and second runner-up, and then this past year I was top 10,” Arwood said. “I am a very resilient, bounce back kind of gal. Things don’t hold me down for very long. I knew exactly what I needed to do different (at Miss Georgia this year) and what I wanted to do different.”
One way she sought to differentiate herself was through her Community Service Initiative, customary for every Miss America Opportunity preliminary.
She switched between different initiatives during her previous title reigns. Then, came Aveline.
While she was Miss Gwinnett County this year, she created the Aveline Project to empower young women and build their confidence in their “season of becoming,” she said. The organization reaches its audience through a seasonal magazine, podcasts and social media, in line with Arwood’s journalism studies.
Sip Social Agency assisted in the creation of the magazine’s layout, website and social media with rates ranging from $2,000 to over $8,000 for their services.
She founded the project with Michele, who previously served as the executive director of the Thomasville Center for the Arts, and was the founding editor for their publication, THOM Magazine.
“The minute she said it, I could fully see and hear exactly what she was talking about,” Michele said. “We combined forces, and it was just a natural time to do it.”
Preparing for the crown
The Miss Georgia Scholarship Competition is divided into five categories, all weighted differently.
During the preliminary nights, 30% is the 10-minute private interview, 20% is fitness, 20% is talent, 20% is evening gown and 10% is the onstage question.
Contestants who make it to the top 15 and to finals are scored a second time, with the previous composite score taking the place of the private interview.
Miss Georgia CEO Trina Pruitt said the organization was “looking for someone who could represent the organization well” at Miss America.
Aleks sought to hit that mark with her level of preparation.
“I joke that I am dating the Miss America Opportunity,” Aleks said. “I wake up thinking about it, I go to bed thinking about it. I think about it all throughout the day. It’s all I think about.”
Arwood’s favorite portion is the evening gown, which she’s taken home preliminary awards for in past years.
“It’s your time to show your confidence, your grace, and how you truly want to present yourself,” Aleks said. “You’re gliding, you’re graceful, you’re doing your poses and then you’re saying to the judges, “Here I am, I hope that you see a title holder in me.”
And then there’s Bill Alverson.
Sitting in the third row on the final night, Alverson tried to keep his gaze focused and unbiased, as many of this year’s Miss Georgia contestants were his clients.
Alverson is a lawyer by trade, but a pageant coach by passion. He’s landed two TLC shows and national recognition. He specializes in preparing contestants for interviews, and says the interview sets the stage for the entire competition.
“We’ll spend hundreds of dollars on a product from a 30 to 45 second commercial, and we’ll decide to watch a movie based upon the trailer we see at the movie theater, and we do make those immediate evaluations and decisions,” Alverson said. “So, in an interview, it’s being your authentic self, but it’s not a lazy preparation.”
When he trains his clients, he never tells them what to say. Instead, he works to get to know the client and their goals so they can best present themselves in 10 minutes. Alverson said that Aleks excels because she has a purpose, is ready to deliver and can control the room. In training, he had to teach her how to let go of that control during the interview.
“Whatever she wants to talk about is great, but you‘ve got to learn how to guide the conversation,” Alverson said. “That also means if they ask, ‘What do you like to do on a sunny day’, she can’t look at you with her eyes going, ‘Are you serious?’ I mean, she’s got to be one of the hardest people to date ever, because she sees straight through people.”
The strong relationship that Aleks built with Alverson helped her to elevate her pageant work.
“Bill … is very honest with you, and he’s honest in a way where most people wouldn’t be,” Aleks said. “So, he helps you work through certain questions, build certain ideas and how to brand yourself in a certain way, where you’re still intelligent but you’re still very relatable.”
Alverson declined to comment on the rate he charges for his services, and Aleks declined to share how much she’s spent on pageant preparation over the years.
In previous years, Arwood’s talent was typically a dance in a style other than ballet, like jazz. . This year, she decided to put her pointe shoes back on and dance to “Gold” by Linda Eder, with a routine choreographed by Shea Sullivan.
Sullivan works in New York City as a choreographer for film, television and theater and as faculty at dance school Steps on Broadway. She has also choreographed for over 200 pageant winners since 1998. Aleks, who has worked with Sullivan over the past two years, traveled to New York City to train at Steps.
“One of the best things about Shea is she is really able to bring out that theatrical side in you,” Aleks said. “That is one of the biggest portions of talent, especially if you’re in a pageant circuit ... that entertainment factor rather than the technique.”
Your new Miss Georgia is …
At the end of the evening, the Miss Georgia top five held hands.
Coming in as fourth runner-up was Kaitlyn Tanner, Miss Georgia Southern University, taking home $1,000 in scholarship money. Miss Capital City, Megan Wright, was third runner-up, winning $2,000. Miss Rome, Anna Kate Robinson, came in as second runner-up, winning $3,000.
Aleks took home first runner-up and $6,500, with Sophia Wootten, Miss Northwest Georgia, taking home the crown and a $25,000 scholarship.
Let her set the record straight: Aleks is in no way upset about her placement. She said she and Wooten are close friends, and is overjoyed that Wooten got the job.
“A lot of times people can assume certain things, and I don’t want that assumption out there,” Aleks said. “I’m incredibly happy.”
Aleks did not walk away empty-handed. She left with the preliminary and overall evening gown, overall fitness and digital strategist awards, as well as a $6,500 scholarship, which she hopes to apply to a master’s degree in business administration.
But what kept her coming back to Miss Georgia was not the prize money nor the crown, but the community of women around her and the skills that she was able to carry with her.
“Everything I do has a reason behind it, and that reason behind it is Miss Georgia, and it’s the women around me,” Arwood said. “If you talk to my parents, if you talk to anyone who has supported me along the way, they’ll tell you that I am a completely different person than I was four years ago. So, whatever monetary investment that was made, it’s been worth every single penny.”
What’s next for Arwood? She’s taking the time post-Miss Georgia to prepare for her move to Atlanta and, hopefully, for graduate school. Luckily for the Aveline Project, it was never designed to end once Arwood’s pageant days were over, with new podcast episodes and magazine issues in the works.
“I’m going the adult route and finding out who I am without a Miss America Opportunity title,” Arwood said. “I think with this new chapter, I’m hoping to see what it’ll kind of transform into. It could be a part of Miss Georgia and Miss America, it could not. It’s just depending on where all of that lands.”