MC sophomore Mason Progar prepares to compete for title of Miss Tennessee | Community

As a girl growing up in the rural Tennessee town of Eagleville, Mason Progar was the stereotypical Southern tomboy, more at home with mud between her toes than nail polish on them.

That the Maryville College sophomore will head to Memphis in June to compete in the Miss Tennessee pageant is as much a surprise to her as it is to anyone else, she said with a laugh.

“I was definitely a tomboy growing up! I preferred playing in the dirt, and I grew up beside a farm, so I was always around animals and horses,” she said. “I played basketball and softball and all the sports possible, and when it came to putting a crown on my head, I was really not interested!”

She was a sophomore in high school, however, when a family friend serving on the board of the Miss Tennessee Scholarship Competition, as it’s officially known, suggested to Progar’s mother that she might make an ideal pageant contestant. Again, she had no interest … but the following year, as she began planning her future after high school, she reconsidered.

“I thought it would be a good way to pay for college, so I might as well just jump in,” she said.

And so she waded into the waters of a long-revered, but sometimes much-maligned, process known far and wide as the beauty pageant circuit. First up: competing in the Miss Lexington Outstanding Teen contest, two hours west of Eagleville, on the suggestion of that family friend. Once there, she had no idea what she was in for. An avid singer, the talent portion seemed like a breeze compared to other aspects of the competition, she said.

“It was really weird, because I had to wear heels, and I’d hardly worn them before. I had to vacuum in heels just to learn to walk in them,” she said. “I like the stage, and I could go up there and talk about anything anybody wanted to bring up, but presenting myself on stage was definitely different. All of the older contestants competing in the Miss division were there parading around, and I was just like, ‘I don’t know what’s happening, but there are sparkles and glitter everywhere.’”

Two things happened that set the tone for her current journey, however: First and foremost, her opinion of pageants as a way to pigeonhole contestants via conventional beauty standards was challenged, especially during the interview process, where judges probe potential crown-wearers for insight into everything from politics to social issues.

“You’re not just asked fluff questions, because they want in-depth and insightful answers, so you have to pay attention to what’s going on around you and get a lot of different perspectives,” she said. “At first, I thought they only cared about hairspray and volume, but instead they want to know what you feel about what’s going on in the world. And on top of that, every contestant has to have some sort of social impact and be working to make changes in their communities.”

The second milestone for Progar in that initial pageant: She won top honors in both the talent and interview portions, which set her on the road for the statewide Miss Tennessee Outstanding Teen contest. That, she added, was a humbling experience: Because she did so well her first time on stage, she underestimated just how polished and poised her fellow Outstanding Teens were, and she finished nowhere near the top.

“It really put things in perspective, and when I decided to keep going and became one of the youngest competitors in the Miss division, I had to take a step back and put in the work,” she said. “I couldn’t just say I won something when I was 16, because there are so many other girls competing who are just as worthy.”

In January 2020, during her first time competing in the Miss division, she took home the title of Miss Tennessee Waltz, an annual competition held in Milan, Tennessee, and was in the running for the Miss Tennessee crown that year, until a health scare forced her to withdraw from competition and almost everything else, including riding horses.

“It was a rough time, because I had to step back and watch all the other girls compete,” she said. “I wanted to be there, but I couldn’t, so I had to give up my title. I think, overall, it gave me another year to look at myself and wonder, why am I doing this? What makes me want to be Miss Tennessee? What am I competing for overall?”

For the rest of 2020, Progar focused on her health and her education. That fall, she enrolled at Maryville College as a Health and Wellness Promotion major. She became a member of the MC Equestrian Team, even though she didn’t start riding competitively until her senior year of high school. And she started her own philanthropic organization, International Smiles, for which she’s currently working on obtaining a nonprofit designation.

“The overall purpose is to collect dental supplies and basically provide children with knowledge on how to take care of their teeth,” she said. “So far, I’ve been to several counties in Tennessee, going to schools and organizations and advocating for a curriculum I came up with for kids as young as 1 all the way up to eighth grade. I donate what I call ‘Smile Bags’ — which include a toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss and stickers — and encourage them to take care of their teeth.

“It runs 100% off of donated supplies, and at this time, I don’t accept any money — just dental supplies, as long as they’re new. So far, I have people from other states and countries donating supplies, and I’ve sent out 5000 supplies so far to three different countries as well.”

And she slowly returned to pageant competition. At one of her first ones back, she placed as the first runner up, and the director encouraged her to look west once again to Henderson, Tennessee — home of the Chester County BBQ Festival. Although it’s another regional event that serves as a qualifier for Miss Tennessee, she didn’t get her hopes up. She simply enjoyed the journey, she said.

“I went in with the idea that I was going to do OK, and that I would let whatever happens, happen,” she said. “Driving to Chester County from Middle Tennessee, I just had a sense of peace, and let me tell you — some of these girls are incredible. I feel like any of the girls I competed with would make excellent title holders, but I went in feeling very calm about it. Over the time I had to take off, I changed my mindset from thinking a competition is something I need to win or that could potentially change my life or someone else’s to, it’s just fun.”

That serenity gave her the confidence and poise she needed to claim the crown, and last September, Mason Progar was named Miss Chester County BBQ Festival. Once again, she’s heading to Memphis in June for the Miss Tennessee competition, and should she claim the win there, she’ll represent Tennessee in next year’s Miss America pageant.

“To me, this is a second chance,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to do everything I could have done or should have done in my first year. I’m being extremely cautious with my health, and I’m in the gym five days a week and active all seven days. I’m practicing my talent, and I’m so involved with my social impact work, because that’
s one of the most important things in my life, with or without a crown.”

She’s continuing to sell Miss Tennessee program advertisement pages to help offset the cost of participation, and after the academic year comes to a close, she’ll pivot to work as a lifeguard for the summer with the luxury resort Blackberry Farm. She’s got her fingers crossed for the way the June contest will play out, of course, but win or lose, she’ll continue to compete.

Doing so has changed her life, and seeing the way her participation also promotes change — both socially and in the perceptions of others — is another type of reward, she added.

“It’s really interesting when people find out I’m doing pageants,” she said. “A lot of times, they’ll say something like, ‘Isn’t that for dumb blondes?’ Trust me — they’re tough! I even wrote an essay for (English) Professor Scott Steele’s class titled exactly that: ‘Why Pageants Are Not for Dumb Blondes.’

“It was really funny watching him read it, and then he asked me, ‘You do pageants? This gave me a lot of insight!’ I just love watching people’s perspectives change.”