Quotation by Michele Passarelli

I had been sitting in my mother's house in a small town in Rhode Island watching the Miss America Pageant, as we always did. After the telecast, I went into the kitchen with my bathrobe tied around by neck singing, "Therrrre She Is, Miss A-mer-i-caaa!" And that very next year I was there on that stage, with God knows how many people watching, and millions of seventeen-year-old women sitting in their living rooms watching the Miss America Pageant. Well, I was so emotionally touched by the whole moment that I was hysterical crying! That I was there, and that there were millions of people watching me, dreaming about doing it someday.