Miss North Carolina, Johna Edmonds, Champions Literacy

by Johna Edmonds

In 2009, I went before a group of young girls from my hometown to speak about the importance of literacy education. At the meeting, I shared my most heavily guarded secret.

Shaking visibly, I told the girls that until I was seven years old, I could not read. Until second grade I relied on pictures to interpret stories, but one day in class I had to face my problem when a teacher assigned a book with no pictures. I could not read it.

I was teased for weeks by my classmates and felt let down by teachers, but I found the motivation I needed and learned to read and write. I developed an insatiable appetite for books and learning. My struggle became the catalyst to establish my personal service platform, Readers to Leaders: Promoting Literacy in America’s Youth.

Our nation faces an epidemic threatening to destroy our future, and the disease is functional illiteracy. Illiteracy overtakes one-third of America’s children by the fourth grade, including two-thirds of African American students and almost one-half of all children in inner cities.

To be illiterate in America is to be unsafe, uncomfortable, and unprotected. Illiteracy breeds sadness, silent humiliation, and desperation. The reality of illiteracy means that millions may not be able to understand the directions on a medicine bottle, to read their telephone bill, to find and keep a job, or to read to a child.

My platform understands literacy as the ability to communicate and understand communication within one’s environment. In our schools, students are simply labeled as reading on, above, or below grade level, with no explanation as to what that means or what constitutes “normal.” This is where my platform and I come in.

As a national literacy activist, I have partnered with local, state, and national organizations to promote and teach literacy in a way that values written, oral, and reading abilities within the context of students’ lives. When I tutor at the Boys and Girls Club or host “IMPACT Reading Days” at elementary schools, my goal for my students is not only for them to be able to read words, but to interpret, understand, and apply them to their world.

To date I have spent more than 6,000 collective hours in committed partnerships with elementary schools across the state. I have collected more than 25,000 books for children undergoing treatment at Duke and NC Children’s Hospitals. I have also worked with State Superintendent of Public Schools, Dr. June Atkinson.

My meetings with Dr. Atkinson have laid the foundation for the development and institution of statewide literacy enhancement initiatives that will undoubtedly create classroom environments rich in language that set high expectations for literacy. My desire is to expand on this success and create similar initiatives in elementary schools across the country.

Since I began promoting my Readers to Leaders platform four years ago, I have learned from interactions with our state’s youth that knowledge gained without context is short-lived and often meaningless. Comprehensive skills in language, learning, and literacy are essential for success in today’s increasingly complex and global world.

It is my goal as the next Miss America to help create learning environments that foster meaningful literacy engagements that afford each and every student the knowledge and skills to realize his or her own hopes and dreams. Simply put: I would like to make probable what our children think might be possible.

Johna Edmonds is a native of Lumberton, NC. She was crowned Miss North Carolina in 2013 and will represent the state of North Carolina in the Miss America 2014 pageant. Edmonds is a graduate of North Carolina State University with an accounting degree.