On broken toe, Columbus teen nails dance performance at Miss Georgia competition
It was the last time Jessica Roberts would be eligible to compete for this title. The event was in her hometown. She finally represented Columbus after needing to win other local competitions four previous years to reach the Miss Georgia’s Outstanding Teen contest.
The finals would be conducted Father’s Day weekend, with her parents, VJ and Oz Roberts, in the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts audience, where she grew up watching the event her dad used to produce.
All of which made it more painful for Jessica when she broke her left pinkie toe while practicing her ballet en pointe routine a week before the competition started.
Those also are the reasons Jessica refused to give up.
“It was a no-brainer,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer. “I was not going to sit out. I was going to do the best I can.”
She did indeed, notching her highest finish, third runner-up out of 38 candidates Friday night. That added $750 to the scholarship money she has earned through five years in the program. In total, directly and indirectly, the amount will pay for attending Wesleyan College, where she plans to major in marketing and advertising, then go to law school.
“This just taught me to do the best with what I have in any situation I’m put in,” said Jessica, 18, who graduated from Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts. “… Try harder anytime you have the opportunity because those opportunities will go away quicker than you think they will.”
Concerned but confident
Oz, the historian at Aflac, served on the Miss Georgia board for 25 years and as the event’s producer for 13 years, but he stopped his involvement to avoid a conflict of interest with Jessica competing. VJ is a full-time actor after retiring three years ago from TSYS.
The medical advice they received said Jessica couldn’t further damage her toe if she continued to dance. It was just a matter of whether she could tolerate the pain.
Ointment, acetaminophen and ibuprofen helped a bit, but she removed the wrap around her broken toe to dance because it inhibited her too much. So she relied more on grit and grace to persevere.
After seeing Jessica wince while even just walking around, VJ came close to insisting Jessica drop out.
“It just broke my heart,” VJ said.
But the parents trusted their daughter’s decision.
“We didn’t tell her what to do,” Oz said. “She was confident.”
Flawless
Jessica tried to keep her injury a secret during the competition, but it was obvious when she iced her toe backstage.
“I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t do my best,” she said.
On a scale of 1-10, Jessica said, the pain was an 8, but the more alarming problem was worrying about how the fracture would affect her performance.
“The anxiety of dancing on the toe was worse than actually dancing on the toe,” she said. “It caused me so much stress throughout the week.”
So she eased off the intensity during rehearsals and didn’t go full out until Thursday night’s preliminary competition.
Jessica nailed her routine — and then vomited three times in a backstage bathroom.
“I barely could get through it,” she said. “But it was fantastic. It made me realize that I can do pretty much anything that I need or want to do, as long as I don’t let it bother me too much and I’m not too fearful.”
Then, during Friday’s finals, she again nailed her routine — and didn’t throw up.
“It was the best feeling in the world,” she said.
Oz called Jessica’s performance flawless. VJ prayed while Jessica was on stage.
“When she got through her dance, we were just looking at each other, like in awe,” VJ said. “She couldn’t have done anything better. She was on it. We were just elated.”
Jessica also received the event’s producer award for being the most cooperative candidate.
“I tell her all the time, it’s very important to be respectful and nice and for people to want to be around you,” Oz said. “To have that award on top of the other speaks volumes for her. … It was a special Father’s Day weekend, to see her happy and to see her succeed.”
The unusual circumstances enabled Jessica to give him a cherished gift.
“I told my dad,” she said, “he could keep my third runner-up plate for Father’s Day.”
