Some people have jobs so cool we'd actually enjoy attending their marathon Zoom meetings. Even the ones that could totally have been an email.
Not to say we don't cherish our all-important responsibility of bringing you every last piece of need-to-know information about the casts of Bridgerton and The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, but we don't have our own glam squad or a Rolodex filled with famous names, now do we?
But the impossibly cool people we'll be profiling in E! News' latest series totally do. Plus access to things like private drivers, designer garb and the type of professional titles we'd drop with wild abandon at parties, dinner dates or while chatting with the barista at Starbucks. Welcome to A Day in the Life...
After 100 years and more than a few revamps (buh-bye, bikinis!) the images of the Miss America Competition remain iconic: Two women clutching each other during an agonizingly long pause (seriously, Camille Schrier, who's held the title for the past two years due to COVID waited nearly 30 full seconds to hear her name called), tears, hugs, confetti and an onstage strut to show off your practiced pageant wave and shiny new accessory.
And yet Miss America hopefuls Jazmin Avalos, Andolyn Medina and Maura Spence-Carroll insist that they're not allllll that focused on this one night of sequins and 20-second answers.
"As much as I want to be Miss America, I'm trying not to lose sight of the fact that only one woman gets to walk home with the title," Maura, the reigning Miss Colorado, explains to E! News. "But 51 of us get the opportunity to be a state title holder. And so if you put so much energy into preparing for the competition that you lose sight of what you have right in front of you, then I think that you need to reassess your priorities."
'Cause being a state title holder is involved, y'all! A second—or, in some cases, third or fourth—job for most of the 51 contestants, it requires a schedule so jam-packed with meetings, appearances and Zoom calls that when asked how they're actually preparing to take the stage at Connecticut's Mohegan Sun Resort for the 100th anniversary competition on Dec. 16 (airing on Peacock at 8 p.m. EST), Maura, Miss California Jazmin and Miss D.C. Andolyn all agreed that they kinda fit it in when and if they can.
"My approach is to prepare for Miss America by being the best title-holder I can be," explains Maura. "Even as Miss America, you're going to be doing the job of Miss America. You're not going to be competing. Most people aren't going to see you walking around in a red carpet gown 99 percent of the time."
At this point they're far more likely to catch Andolyn Uber-ing across town for an event after spending all afternoon working on her doctoral dissertation, Maura sweating her way through pre-dawn PT on base and Jazmin fueling up on protein shakes to power through a full day of work as a bilingual substitute teacher and Disneyland cast member.
In a joint phone interview, the trio of contenders tell E! News how they make the magic happen.
5:45 a.m. Alexa, play "Reveille". Maura—one of four military members competing for the crown—wakes up before the sun and heads to base at Colorado's Fort Carson for 6:30 physical training. "We'll run or we'll weight lift or sometimes we'll do rucks, which is when we put on these big backpacks, basically," explains the active-duty solider. "And then we go walk around base for an hour, hour and a half."
And while juggling both her role in the military and the title of Miss Colorado is a lot, "They've been working really well together, so I'm very thankful for that," the 21-year-old says. "The Army is very supportive of me competing at Miss America and representing the organization. I couldn't be luckier."
7:00 a.m. Maura's fellow sister in arms Andolyn, a naval officer, also has an early wake-up in Washington, D.C., but hers comes courtesy of pup Knowles demanding a walk. "I'm not a coffee drinker," she admits of snagging six to seven hours of sleep a night, "so I'm literally just running off pure energy." And endorphins. The cycling enthusiast tries to fit in a morning workout most days, whether that's hopping on her Peloton for a ride or doing some yoga.
Across the country, Jazmin is arriving to the day's first job—working as a bilingual substitute teacher in her school district. "Living out of my car has become pretty routine," admits the California State University, Fullerton grad—the first in her family to pursue higher education—of the days that take her from the classroom to events to her job at Disney. "I am very good about carrying food around with me everywhere that I go. And I do always carry a tub of protein powder in my trunk, fun fact. About 70 percent of my body is made out of Diet Pepsi. The other 30 percent is coffee."
9:30 a.m. Specialist Maura, reporting for duty! An intelligence analyst and security manager with the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, Maura spends her morning "sending off emails, checking security clearances, scheduling investigations and also scheduling different inspections," she details.
In D.C., Andolyn is also on her grind at George Washington University, where she's in her fourth and final year of studies to complete her doctoral degree in clinical psychology. "I am writing my doctoral research, my big dissertation that will be due at the end of the year," says the 25-year-old, who also works as a therapist. "So that's the main thing I'm doing when I'm not Miss D.C. and attending classes."
11:30 a.m. No such thing as a free lunch for Maura, who spends her midday break plowing through as many Miss Colorado-related meetings as possible. Having lived with anxiety, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, she's eager to erase the stigma that still surrounds mental health.
"We're working on partnering with a couple of organizations right now that support my social initiative," she explains, "because I talk about military mental healthcare reform and also different ways that we can help mental health services in the civilian sector."
3 p.m. School's out! Which means Jazmin has just enough time to get in some exercise (she enjoys lifting weights, kickboxing and hiking) before flipping open her laptop. "A lot of my time is spent behind my computer," the 24-year-old aspiring college professor says of virtual appearances "that promote not only my social impact initiative, which is called Ending Substance Abuse, but also to speak on the importance of scholarships and education as a first-generation student."
Her goal, she says of the drug prevention organization she founded at age 14, is "to show other people from similar backgrounds that they could stand where I stand and that they're not the only people that come from a background with an addictive parent and that they can choose to break that cycle of addiction."
4:30 p.m. With half her battalion currently deployed and her half on rear detachment, "we've been getting off a little tiny bit early," shares Maura. But she's not much for free time. "A joke that we like to make in the ADHD community is it's like a shark, you can't lose momentum," she notes. "We have to keep moving."
For Maura that means taking care of laundry and dishes the moment she gets home and either hitting the gym next door for her second workout of the day or heading back into Miss Colorado mode. "Sometimes I'm speaking at schools," she says, "sometimes, just going to farmer's markets and meeting people or getting to go to super fun, glamorous events every once in awhile."
Regardless of what's on her agenda (fun fact: most of the title holders work as their own booking managers, scheduling various events and meetings), she relishes every jam-packed moment. "I'm conscious of the fact that I have wanted to be Miss Colorado for eight years now, I've wanted to go to Miss America, I've dreamed of having this opportunity," she notes. "So I try to do as much as I can."
6 p.m. Andolyn's calendar has her booked for an event of the more glam variety—the 36th annual Mayor's Arts Awards complete with a red carpet outside the city's Howard Theatre and some facetime with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to chat about future opportunities.
"But as Miss D.C., an appearance really varies," she acknowledges. "I've done appearances with The Real Housewives of Potomac to an appearance at the farmer's market to the Mayor's Awards. And then also doing webinars and meeting with nonprofit executives for my platform, which is human trafficking."
Her mission to bring awareness to the plight of trafficking victims began with an internship at The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children after she finished her master's in forensic psychology. "I was working with the family advocacy division where I was often tasked with making the phone calls to the family members of missing kids," she explains. "And it was in that moment that I was terrified, because I realized that this was not something that I knew about, not something that I was aware of."
She's since given monthly webinars with FAIR Girls and volunteered as a victim assistant specialist for a national hotline. "The most wild thing while I was there was receiving an anonymous phone call from somebody in my hometown, Chesapeake, Virginia, telling me that they were being human trafficked," she recalls. "They told me the street. And I could see it just perfectly in my eyes exactly where they were located and yet I knew I had no way possible of helping them. I don't want anyone else to feel that helplessness. And I want us to be aware and to demand an end to human trafficking."
Meanwhile in SoCal...an overnight at Disneyland isn't uncommon for longtime cast member Jazmin. Thankfully it is the happiest place on earth. Currently, she shares, "I am a cast member in the entertainment department and I am frequently on stage in performance roles." (And, no, she can't get more specific about those particular parts.)
Having been with the company for several years, one of her favorite jobs was as a bilingual facilitator. "Which meant that I had the opportunity to present the company's history, legal content and to show new cast members from all lines of businesses, whether they're engineers or working in a hotel or working in attractions, kind of what Disney is all about," she explains. "And being able to do that for people in my classroom that were solely Spanish-speaking was so special to me because my first language is Spanish."
10 p.m. After taking an Uber home ("Living in D.C., parking is hard to find!") it's finally time for Andolyn to unwind. As a therapist, she's huge on self-care, which, for her, means as many healthy home-cooked meals as possible and time spent with "friends and people that are really just making deposits in my life and not withdrawing," she says. "I'm naturally an introvert, so the other thing that refuels me is watching Netflix and getting in my alone time, too."
While Maura sticks to a strict 10:30 p.m. bedtime "because I have to be up at 5:45 a.m. and do it all again," Adolyn is a natural night owl, staying up until midnight or 1 a.m. bingeing favorites. "I just finished watching Monsters Inside because my master's is in forensic psych and that one is all about psychology and mental health disorders," she describes. "So that was the most recent one, but now I'm excited to watch Squid Game. All the Miss America girls are talking about it."
Just one more thing for them to touch base about when they get to meet up again in December.
Describing their bond as a sisterhood ("I have a friend in every single state and these women are just so incredibly driven and smart and talented"), Jazmin says she's counting down the days until they reunite at Mohegan Sun, the site of their September orientation.
"It just gives me chills to know that we are going to be standing on stage when one of these young women—whoever she might be—gets the opportunity, not only to be the centennial Miss America," she says, "but her life will change forever in front of us. And she'll have the opportunity to utilize this platform to bring about social change for things that she's so passionate about."
(A version of this story originally published on Oct. 28, 2021 at 6 a.m. PT)