Marcia M. Turner '97 is spending her summer preparing to head to Atlantic City, N.J. But she's hardly practicing blackjack.

Turner, a resident of Lowell House, will be participating in the nationally-televised Miss America pageant.

"I practice piano every day," said Turner, who will play classical piano for the talent competition. "I exercise every day. I focus on being up on current events."

"I was never very cynical [about pageants], I just wasn't interested," Turner said. "Now, I see this is where I want to spend my time."

Turner meets with a personal trainer three times a week and she works out at the gym on off days. She also meets with an attorney periodically to discuss current events in preparation for the interview.

"They're ruthless," Turner joked about those helping her to prepare for the pageant. "They make me work really hard."

The Miss America competition, to be held in September, will consist of four sections: the evening gown and swimsuit competitions, each worth 15 percent of the overall score, (seerelated story, this page), the12-and-a-half-minute interview, worth 30 percent,and the talent competition, worth 40 percent.

As part of her focus on helping high schoolstudents go to college, Turner is putting in manyhours on Boston Partners in Education.

"I want to help others have similaropportunities," she said in an interview this weekwith The Crimson. "I have a lot of places tospeak, and they usually want me to speak on whyeducation is important."

Turner was named Miss Massachusetts on June17th. She won both the interview and talentportions of the pageant, which account for 70percent of the overall score.

"Friday night they had everyone compete. Theyannounced the preliminary talent and I had won.The next night they announced the top 10," Turnersaid. "Then they announced the winner of theinterview, and it was me. So I sort of knew."

"My mom sure didn't know. She came running downthe aisle at the end of the runway and gave me ahug," she added.

Turner said she has faced a lot of skepticismfrom fellow students, but hopes that she canchange "at least one person's view of whatpageants can be." She said what happened withanother dorm crew worker is an example of that.

"She was very skeptical. We were in dorm crewand she saw me scrubbing toilets," Turner said. "Itold her about the work I was doing with teens."

"I don't think she was a convert, but she has aslightly different opinion," she added.

Clarissa J. Ngo '97 and J. Latisha Seabrook, astudent at the graduate school of education, alsocompeted for title of Miss Massachusetts. Lastyear's Miss Massachusetts was extension schoolstudent Sharon Lee.

Turner said she had been approached by pageantofficials in her home state of Washington threeyears ago, but didn't want to spend time preparingfor pageants because they were "too frivolous."

"You get scholarship money, which for me is aplus," she said. "I want to be more involved withhelping students go to college."

The change of perspective occurred last summer,when Turner met with pageant directors again.

"They said to look at this not as a beautycontest, not a reign, but as a year of service,"Turner said. "I thought 'oh, that's just PR.'Then, this [past] summer, I asked if it is reallya year of service.