Faces of the APA:
8-Ball Beauty Miss Virginia 2004 - Mariah Rice

Mechanicsville, Va., APA member and current Miss Virginia, Mariah Rice, is smart, talented, and beautiful, and she can play a pretty mean game of 8-Ball! “Pool is a hobby of mine. I like the competitiveness. I think it’s fun to be a girl and play pool. When you play someone they usually don’t expect you to beat them!” said Mariah, who is currently a skill level 3. “But I’ve been teetering on a 4, and that’s exciting. It means I am improving!” added Mariah.

Mariah started participating in pageants after high school. “I was volunteering one day and someone said to me ‘You should be in the Miss Universe pageant’. At first, I just laughed but I got to thinking about it, and it wasn’t such a bad idea,” said Mariah. “I am the first in my family to pursue a college education. The scholarships awarded to pageant winners are the greatest award I could have received.” Mariah is a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University.

In September, she’ll go on to represent the state of Virginia during the Miss America pageant. She will be competing among 52 contestants, from each of the states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. The pageant was scheduled to air on September 18 on ABC. (Results were not available at the time this magazine went to press.)

Mariah has to prepare both mentally and physically for pageants. “Mentally, I have to be confident in myself and my abilities. I also have to work at my platform, perform community service, and stay up on current events. Physically, I have to keep up with my dancing and keep in shape. I travel about 4,000 miles a month, so sometimes it’s hard to do,” Mariah said.

She attends festivals, parades, talk shows and does motivational speaking appearances. “I am a motivational speaker about my platform—Fighting Insecurity in Today’s Teens. This subject is very close to me because when I was younger I had an eating disorder. I receive many letters from teens I have inspired. It means a lot to me when I get a letter from an anorexic teen who tells me I have inspired her,” said Mariah.

“My boyfriend, Dusty Kerby, introduced me to the APA about four years ago. After two sessions of attending his matches each week, I joined. We play out of Bottom Billiards in Richmond, Va. We have a very strong team and we always come really close to qualifying for Vegas,” said Mariah.

If Mariah is crowned Miss America she’ll be moving up North to fulfill her duties. “You basically take a year off of school to raise awareness about your platform and perform the job duties of Miss America, which also includes traveling about 10,000 miles a month!”

If Mariah is not crowned Miss America she will continue to tour the state of Virginia to give motivational speeches to raise awareness for her platform until June when she crowns Miss Virginia 2005.

This article orginally appeared in the FAll 2004 issue of The American Poolplayer Magazine produced by the American Poolplayers Association.