After Miss Montana pageant, beauty eyes the FBI

Tori Price won second runner-up in the Miss Montana pageant Sept. 6 in Missoula. She also wants to work for the FBI someday, or perhaps become an attorney.

It may seem like she is the real life Gracie Hart from the movie Miss Congeniality, but her dream is to be a big city attorney.

“I’m ready to go and try new things,” Price said. She hopes to move to New York City or the District of Columbia after she graduates.

The 20-year-old has been pushing herself since high school, graduating from Columbia Falls in 2013. Now in her third year at Montana State University as a sociology and criminology major with a prelaw emphasis, she is on the President’s Honor Roll for having a 4.0 grade point average for two years.

“I have a lot I want to do. It may be really ambitious, but I’m trying,” she said.

Last year, she entered the pageant for the first time and made it to first runner-up.

“Last year I really didn’t expect anything of myself,” she said.

This year, she showed up to win.

It looked like it was paying off when she was the first one called on to move up to the top five. After that she had to answer two interview questions in front of a live audience, before the judges would rescore and announce the winner.

One was related to social media. She was asked, “What would I say to a friend who was texting and driving?”

“Those words aren’t more important than your life. You’re putting others on the road at risk. It’s a very selfish thing to do,” she recalls answering.

Then a judge asked her what America’s role should be in the world.

“I believe a leader—something to look up to, as a democracy,” she recalls. “We need to internally work on us before we can work on others.”

After the interview, she had to wait for the results. She couldn’t tell if she did well by looking at the judges.

“Some will smile at you and some won’t crack at all,” she said.

She won’t ever know her scores either. The pageant stopped posting contestant scores years ago.

“You’re not supposed to compare yourself to others, but you do,” she said.

She thought that with the experience from last year, she could win the pageant.

“It was exciting but it was a little disappointing,” she said of being second runner-up.

Her bout in the pageantry world began when she saw the winner of Miss Montana 2014, Kadie Latimer, who was a four-sport athlete in high school. Price was a busy athlete as well, playing soccer, softball, basketball and cross-country. She thought if Latimer could do it, why not her.

When she told her family and friends last year that she was going to be in the pageant, they weren’t as sure.

“My dad said, ‘you’re basically a boy — why are you doing this?’” she recalled.

They were ever more shocked when she made it as far as she did last year and again this year.

“I was told I performed extremely well,” she recalled of this year’s pageant. “I looked more elegant and graceful on stage.”

She recommends other woman should try it out because they would be surprised at the value of the experience. She met many women from across the state, who also have big goals and dreams.

The second runner up award is a $2,500 cosmetology school scholarship. It’s useless to her since she wants to be a prosecuting attorney. The true award is that she learned to keep her head up, hold herself confidently, take herself seriously and make sure others know that you do, too, she noted.

“It puts things in perspective,” she said.