The Miss America pageant is a popular beauty pageant based on evening wear, swimsuit wear, a talent portion and an ability to answer questions on current events. In the talent portion, many of the Miss America contestants took to music and art, like singing and dance. But, one brave contestant opted out of these typical talents and chose to showcase something else.
Miss Colorado, Kelley Johnson, chose to do a monologue for her talent portion of the competition. Unlike the other girls, Johnson walked on stage in her purple scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck. She took a huge breath and everyone just knew what she was about to say was going to be a tearjerker. She started off saying every nurse has that one patient who shows them why he or she became a nurse in the first place. She spoke of Joe, an Alzheimer’s patient, who would have constant night terrors. Joe would ask for different medicine and treatment, but Johnson couldn’t do anything because she was “just a nurse.” Instead, they would talk about his family and anything else to keep his spirits up.
One night, in order to calm Joe down, Johnson told him, “You are not just Alzheimer’s, you are still Joe.” What Joe said back to her opened the floodgates. “Nurse Kelley, then the same goes for you. Although you say it all the time, you are not just a nurse, you are my nurse. And you have changed my life because you have cared about me.” Her monologue gave light to a nurse’s life and their true talent of caring for people.