As a little girl in a pink fluffy dress and plastic tiara, Tosha Herrman fervently fixed her eyes to her parent’s television as she waited for actor Ron Ely to announce the next Miss America.
It was in this garb that Herrman’s attraction to beauty pageants was born.
Now, 22 years old and majoring in radio, TV, and film at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Herrman has been crowned Miss Oshkosh 2008 and will compete for the title of Miss Wisconsin this June.
“Being involved in the Miss America pageant has been a dream of mine ever since I was a child,” Herrman said. “There is a video of me as a child watching the Miss America pageant dressed up in a pink, fluffy dress that was 10 sizes too big and a plastic tiara.”
Herrman’s first pageant experience was in the 2005 Miss Oshkosh pageant where she was the fourth runner-up and voted Miss Congeniality by her peers.
“I only wanted to be Miss Oshkosh because I am from Oshkosh, and I really do love this city,” said the Oshkosh North High School alumna of her early pageant experience.
Competing again for Miss Oshkosh glory in 2006 and 2007, Herrman settled for first runner-up in both years and began to think her dream of walking on the Miss America stage was unattainable.
“These experiences made me think of the quote ‘The harder the course, the more rewarding the triumph,’” Herrman said. “I just knew that I would be a great representative of Oshkosh, so I kept trying.”
By visiting with a prior Miss Wisconsin, religiously reading the newspaper to perfect her interviewing skills, developing a personal and meaningful platform, and spending many hours on her tap routine, Herrman believes she worked harder than ever before to prepare for this year’s pageant.
“The moment when they announced my name as Miss Oshkosh 2008, will be a moment I will cherish the rest of my life. I wanted to cry, laugh, scream – I couldn’t have prepared myself for the rush of feelings I had.”
Now an official part of the Miss America family, Herrman will continue to develop her pageant platform to raise awareness and to help fund research for Ataxia-Telangiectasia (A-T).
“A-T is a deadly genetic disease that combines symptoms of MS, cancer, and AIDS all rolled into one,” said Herrman who has been helping to raise awareness of A-T for the past two years by helping with the production and logistics of two successful A-T telethons put on by the National Broadcasting Service and Titan TV. “It affects children and they usually do not survive past their teens. I want to see a treatment or a cure for this disease someday soon.”
The next A-T Telethon will be Nov. 10, 2008, on local Channel 66. It is a nine-hour live telecast that includes performances by local bands and auction items.
Herrman also has goals to create more communication between schools in the Oshkosh community through broadened A-T awareness.
“My first goal is to create a friendly competition between the schools in the community,” Herrman said. “For example, high schools will duel off to see who can raise the most money to donate to the A-T Telethon. Middle and elementary schools would do the same. We would have a great prize for the winning schools and the representatives of each school would appear on our live broadcast.”
Herrman’s next pageant appearance will be at the 2008 Miss Wisconsin competition at 7:30 p.m. June 19-21 in Oshkosh West High School’s Alberta Kimball Auditorium.