For Amanda Peacock, the doors that have opened for her through pageantry have been endless.
That is why Peacock continues to compete. She is competing in her fourth Miss New Jersey competition. This year, she is competing as Miss Harbor Shores 2023.
The competition is being held at Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City this weekend. Preliminaries take place Thursday, June 15 and Friday, June 16. Finals are June 17.
Her first taste of pageantry was more than 10 years ago when she was 13 years old. Growing up as a theater kid who loved to dance and sing, she took a suggestion of entering a pageant competition to heart.
“I did not know anything about pageants at the time,” Peacock recalled.
Since then, she has been named Miss Gloucester County’s Teen in 2014 and 2015, Miss Atlantic Shores’ Teen in 2016, Miss Veterans Day in 2018, Miss Northern Lakes in 2019, and Miss South Jersey in 2022.
Now at 24, Peacock has appreciated all the opportunities that the pageants have given her along with the life skills that has let her stay grounded.
More importantly, she said, the pageants have afforded her a voice for a cause that hit close to home through the Toni and RJ Foundation.
A lifelong resident of Williamstown – only living away in north Jersey when she attended Montclair State University – Peacock was drawn to what happened to Toni Donato Bolis in 2011. The foundation was later created in memory of Bolis and her unborn son.
Bolis was just 28 when she and her unborn son were killed in a motor vehicle crash caused by a distracted driver using a cell phone. She was less than a mile away from home and less than 36 hours away from giving birth to her second child, Ryan Jeffrey, or RJ.
The crash happened on Pitman-Downer Road in Washington Township. A driver distracted by using his cell phone entered the lane of opposing traffic. After missing two other cars, he struck Bolis’ SUV head-on, according to the foundation’s website.
Just 13 at the time, Peacock used her pageant competitions as a platform for distracted driving awareness.
She joined forces with the Toni and RJ Foundation, which has a mission to educate drivers on the dangers of driving distracted by publicly sharing Toni and RJ’s story in schools and other public forums.
Peacock said she continues to work with the Toni and RJ Foundation and also works with End Distracted Driving, a project of the Casey Feldman Foundation.
Her favorite group to speak to on the dangers of distracted driving are the students in driver education classes.
“They are just learning the ways of the road,” she said, noting the importance to stop the epidemic of distracted driving from the beginning. “If [new drivers] learn not to reach for that phone, it won’t become a habit.”
That is why education is so important to end distracted driving, Peacock said.
“Three thousand lives are taken every year because of distracted driving,” she said. “That is 3,000 lives that did not need to end. These are not accidents; these are distracted driving crashes.”
According to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, .25% of all crashes involve drivers who use a cell phone.
Advocacy for distracted driving will be her community service initiative in the competition this weekend.
The Miss New Jersey competition involves an interview, talent, an on-stage question, fitness and wellness, and evening wear.
Peacock said her ultimate goal is Miss New Jersey. A long-term goal is Miss America. With a full-time job at Princeton University, she is working towards those lofty goals, one step at a time.
“It’s year-long mindset,” she said of preparing for the pageants. “It keeps me grounded. I keep an active lifestyle, which keeps me mentally and physically well.”
For more information about the Miss New Jersey competition visit www.missnj.org.
