Dazzling beauty: Plus-size model, pageant winner helps students lift their self-esteem

Posted on a wall in her classroom are the words "Imagine," "Dream Big" and "Believe."

Shanta Patrick, a fifth-grade reading and English language arts teacher at Wynnton Arts Academy, has embodied those words. She was a teased child who came home crying because she was bullied about being overweight. Now as an adult, she has shed tears of joy after being judged in a different way.

Patrick blossomed into a plus-size model and beauty queen who shatters stereotypes while building self-esteem in students through a program she established called Dazzle.

So when the 2015 Mrs. Southeast Plus America looks at those motivational words in her classroom now, she remembers consoling herself after those taunts by drawing pictures of the models she idolized in magazines, and she realizes those words serendipitously sum up her journey.

"I really just glued them up there, but it does start off with your imagination," she said. "I guess when I go back to those drawings of those famous girls, and then transitioning to the 'dream big' part, you know, 'I can do this too.' But I had to believe in myself in order to accomplish it."

More than a platform

While many pageant contestants create a platform to participate in the event, Patrick participated in the event to promote the platform she already had created.

"Adding that crown gets you so many more invitations," she said with a laugh.

Patrick, 38, graduated from Spencer High School in 1994, then earned a bachelor's degree in 1999 from Columbus State University and has been teaching at Wynnton ever since. After obtaining a master's degree in 2004, she is working on her doctorate in curriculum and instruction, also at CSU.

To qualify for a plus-size pageant, teens must be at least a size 12; the minimum size for older contestants is 14W. Patrick's size is 16W. The categories comprise elegant pant wear, formal gown, interview and community service. Patrick has compiled more than 285 hours since November through her Dazzle program.

For the Columbus pageant last fall, the winner was selected online. Patrick said she doesn't know how many contestants vied for the local title.

On April 11, she competed in Atlanta, which hosted the Georgia and Southeast pageants in one event. Patrick won the Southeast title out of eight participants.

During the last weekend of July, also in Atlanta, she was one of 62 competitors in the national pageant. She wasn't among the top five named on stage and doesn't know in which place she finished because she hasn't received her scores. But she was selected as first runner-up in the national cover girl category. The judging was done through submitted photos online, where the public could vote, and she collected nearly 4,000 votes.

"I really was scared, not scared of participating but scared of how I was going to feel if I didn't win," she said. " Some people are there solely because they want that crown. They've tried, three, four, five times. There are people who move to a different state so they can get a title. Then you have girls who've done it because it's a different type of pageant and they've always wanted to be in pageantry but they were plus size so they didn't think they could."

Then there are contestants such as Patrick.

"I found it because I wanted to be able to do the community service aspect and be able to get my foot in the door at places I wouldn't be able to without that title," she said. "So just coming and participating just opened my eyes even more to what I think my true - well, I know what my true calling is, which is to help other girls and women feel good about themselves."

Self-image struggle

Growing up, Patrick didn't always feel good about herself, but she feels blessed to have parents who boosted her over the bullies.

"I didn't stay down for long," she said. "I'm not saying it didn't affect me. It did, but because I had that stable home life and my parents always telling me, 'You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're smart, you can do it,' and all that kind of stuff, I was fine. But everyone doesn't have that."

So she feels compelled to provide that foundation for her students.

Patrick's hair began to shed when she was 12, the result, she believes, from the lye a cosmetologist used to straighten her hair. The loss of hair was so bad, she said, "I barely had more than most boys in my classes."

Combined with being heavier and taller than most girls, and wearing glasses and a retainer, Patrick was an easy target for bullies.

"Just about anything that you could think of that middle school aged children get picked on for, I had it," she said. " I felt like I was the ugliest person in the world."

Then her military family was transferred from Fort Benning to Fort Shafter in Hawaii, where females generally are larger than they are on the mainland, Patrick said, and students didn't know her before the hair loss so they didn't have a reason to tease her.

"I overcame by realizing that I was beautiful in my own way," Patrick said. "I realized that different people think that different things are beautiful and that I am my own kind of beautiful and that is enough."

She shared that hair-losing story with her Dazzle students in response to a girl who said she felt so ugly that she wanted to die.

"I had a conversation with her about feelings and situations only being temporary and for her not to make permanent decisions about temporary situations," she said.

Many of the girls were "shocked" to hear that Patrick ever felt that way about herself, she said. They guessed that she must have looked a lot different back then. But when she showed them a photo, they were surprised again.

"My features were exactly the same as they are now," she said. "The biggest difference is how I began to feel about myself. That confidence is what people see. When they see it, they can't help but think - better yet, know -- that I am beautiful."

Another challenge

After moving back to Columbus when she was 15, Patrick's self-esteem was challenged again.

"There were boys who actually liked me, but they wanted to be my 'secret' boyfriend," she said. "So I would get the regular note, 'Do you like me? Check yes or no.' And when I would check yes, they would write back, 'OK, but this is our secret. I love you that much that it's our secret.' I also received letters from the cool boys, asking me to go out. I would get excited, then they would say, 'I was just joking. What would make you think I would like you?'"

If she wore a pair of shorts, she recalled, "They would say, 'Ooh, look at all that hanging out,' loud, on the bus, for everyone to hear."

Music and drawing gave her solace.

"That's when I really began to connect through the arts," she said. "I was going through magazines and drawing pictures of women's faces who I thought I wanted to look like. But when I look back, they weren't real thin women. They were heavier women. They weren't huge, but they were heavier. So I think I was always comfortable with that, but I didn't understand why no one else seemed to appreciate that beauty comes in different sizes."

As a teen, she weighed more than 200 pounds. As an adult, she topped out at 305 pounds, in her earlier 20s. Then she committed to a healthier lifestyle, exercising almost every day, eating healthier food.

At 245 pounds, she is content with her size now, and she said her doctor concurs, "as long as I take care of my health and I can run up a flight of stairs without breathing hard and passing out."

Patrick learned not to fixate on her weight but focus on her health.

"So many people just label themselves by a number, just like we label ourselves black, white, tall," she said. "They think we're supposed to all fit into one mold. That number is made up of so many things. That 245 is your bone density, how much water you're holding. It's so many other factors other than, 'This chart says this.'

"Then there are other numbers you should be more concerned about. What is your blood pressure? What is your heart rate? Those are the important numbers. I would like to lose a few more pounds, but my No. 1 goal is to be able to breathe correctly. Diabetes is rampant in my family. Heart disease is rampant in my family. All those things are more important than what the number on the scale says."

Out of the darkness

Her scale soared to 305 pounds in 2007, when Patrick's outlook plummeted to an all-time low.

She was separated from her husband, taking care of a 1-year-old and a 5-month-old, and some days it was a battle just to get out of bed.

"I thought I was ugly," she said. "I thought I was horrible, just a fat slob, just lazy. I'd come to work and put on a face and just go home and take NyQuil and just go to sleep."

Then one morning while lying in bed, Patrick asked herself, "What are you doing?" And she quickly gave herself the answer she sought, "This is not you. You're wasting your life. Get up and start taking care of yourself."

So she committed herself to "pour into" her students the self-esteem she was struggling to find in herself. And together, they progressed.

"I'm here with these children more than they are with their parents," she said. "So when I would see a little girl - boys too, but girls really stick out to me because that's me - when I see them having that look on their face, I would always pull them to the side and talk to them and make sure that I fed into them and tell them that they're beautiful the way they are."

In 2010, she met the man who would become her second husband two years later. In between, she became a member of Project Curve Appeal, an international organization that promotes plus-size women living a healthy lifestyle.

"I'm not your average model," she said. "I'm almost 40. I'm overweight. I'm not really tall enough to be the traditional model, but through Project Curve Appeal, I actually started modeling."

She found out about it on the Internet while searching for information about plus-size model Mia Amber Davis after she died. She thought, "This is something that exists, for real?"

Really. Patrick ended up modeling in Atlanta, New York, Miami and Las Vegas. Then last year, friends in the industry told her about plus-size pageants.

Dazzling impact

The Dazzle program combines reading and the arts to help children improve their self-esteem. After reading together a book with that theme, the participants interpret the message through singing, dancing, acting, drawing or painting. Then a class discussion connects the topic to their lives.

At Wynnton last school year, Patrick conducted Dazzle as an after-school program for 15 girls in grades 3-5. They met for an hour every Friday for eight weeks. They finished with a graduation ceremony, complete with crowns and sashes.

After reading how the girls' self-images evolved through their journals and absorbing the graduation scene, Patrick gushed, "I don't have words to describe it."

A few witnesses have plenty of words to describe it.

Wynnton principal Carolyn Mull noticed some Dazzle participants who had shied away from parts in school performances started volunteering for roles. One girl in particular, she said, "stood a little prouder. Students who were very self-conscious about their bodies are now willing to take more risks. Everyone is different and they need to embrace their differences, that each one is special and unique in their own way."

Mary Peralez calls registering her daughter, Madison Wagoner, for Dazzle "the best thing I could have done for her. It was just so amazing."

Peralez sees that impact when Madison sings Christina Aguilera's empowerment anthem "Beautiful" and clearly believes the lyrics despite dealing with epileptic seizures.

"She still sings that song, looking in the mirror and trying on different outfits," Peralez said. "That program, it really touched her."

Madison, now a sixth-grader at Fort Middle School, said Patrick enabled her to find her individuality, to wear what she thinks is stylish without fearing peer pressure.

"She really breaks it down for you and helps you understand it," Madison said.

Gwendolyn Allen has seen a similar transformation in her daughter, Kimora. Allen used to buy Kimora dresses, encouraging her to wear clothes like her classmates, but Kimora insisted on wearing pants and shorts.

"She started saying this is me and it's OK and I'm comfortable with who I am," Allen said.

Allen credits Patrick with guiding the students on a path toward more security in themselves so they could reach out to each other and form a more supportive group.

"She's such a wonderful role model in that she's not the traditional Barbie doll Miss America," Allen said. "She's gorgeous, and she hasn't let anything stop her. I love that lady."

Reaching out

Patrick wants to expand Dazzle to the younger grades this year. She also has conducted the program as a one-time event at Faith Tabernacle Community Church and the Liberty Theatre and a few times at Girls Inc. She spoke to rising sixth-graders in the DARE To Be Great program this summer at Fort Middle School. Her message is full of questions:

"What are you doing that's positive in the world? What are you doing to help someone else? Everyone is going to have something that someone else doesn't like, but it doesn't matter what someone else doesn't like. Do you like yourself? When you go to bed at night, are you happy with what you've done today?"

Every session of the Dazzle program, she wears her crown and sash. The children are amazed when she doesn't look like the typical beauty queen. So she asked them what's different about her.

"They're always scared to say the weight," she said, "because they don't want to hurt my feelings."

She asks them, "Is Mrs. Patrick skinny? It's OK for you to say I'm not, because everyone's different." She added with a laugh, "Once I give them that permission, they say, 'Nooooo!"

Now, she hopes to train other adults to conduct Dazzle. "I want it to be a household name," she said.

All of her Dazzle presentations are free of charge.

"I'm in this for feeding into young people," she said.

As for her pageant career, she is one and done. Oh, she enjoyed the experience, but she got out of it what she wanted, and it launched her Dazzle program so well, she is too busy to compete again.

She recalled how some contestants reacted to losing.

"They went back to the dressing room and had a total breakdown," she said. "They forgot all about all these things they've done for the months leading up to it and how positive their experiences are and all they accomplished. That one moment of not having their number called took them right back down to an ugly place."

Patrick also doesn't need the validation from the pageants because she already provided it for herself. She turned around her life before the crown - and the crown has helped her turn around the lives of others.

Asked to explain the origin of her program's name, Patrick shared what she told those judges:

"Close your eyes, if you will, and imagine the shiniest gemstone. But that gemstone is lost, tossed in the dirt, among the rocks. It's all dirty. Does that make it no longer a gemstone? Someone comes along, dusts it off. It revives its shininess and it's still a gemstone, only it's been through the fire, it's been through torture and pain, so it's even betetr than it was before.

"I want to help girls rediscover that they still are that dazzling gemstone. We've just got to dust off what the world has done to them."

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272. Follow him on Twitter@MarkRiceLE.

HOW TO BOOK THE DAZZLE PROGRAM

To book a date for Shanta Patrick to conduct the Dazzle program for your group, free of charge, call her at 706-662-7284 or email her at mrs.columbusplusamerica2015@gmail.com.

This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Dazzling beauty: Plus-size model, pageant winner helps students lift their self-esteem ."