Why We Dig Raeceen
Raeceen Woolford, who did a lot of digging of volleyballs as a UH Wahine libero, today wears the crown of Miss Hawaii.
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Woolford says volleyball helped her win Miss Hawaii and will be beneficial in her hopeful run to Miss America:
“Just like a sport, you have to mentally prepare in addition to physically. When you see yourself competing for a pageant, you see yourself in front of a lot of people, you see yourself doing your talent over and over again. You try to visualize that comfort level, the fluidity, the mastery of it. I did that for Miss Hawaii. If you think positively, if you visualize positively, you end up performing positively.”
In addition to the mental preparedness, athletics also have sculpted Woolford into a muscular competitor who looks nothing like the long and all-too-lean contestants of the past.
“It’s more mainstream and cool to be fit and proportionate then to be waifish,” she says. “When you see a woman on stage in a swimsuit with a great physique, it’s much more inspiring then seeing someone who is unrealistically skinny, because most women are not like that. When you see someone who is defined on stage, you know they actually worked to get to that point rather than starving themselves. So I find it more inspirational, and I think more people can relate to that.”
Just as she did for Miss Hawaii, Woolford will be dancing hula for her talent at the national level. Her kumu hulas, Keano Kaupu and Lono Padilla, and production manager Ray Abregano, have created a brand new dance that she has yet to publicly unveil. The dance took a couple of months to create and to learn, and while judges in Las Vegas may not be as familiar with the dance as their counterparts in Honolulu, she hardly sees that as a disadvantage.
“You have to acknowledge that some judges may not know how to judge hula because it is so different. But the uniqueness is an advantage. It’s how you present it. It can be so mesmerizing.
Its performance is so majestic. I want them to judge my performance not based on technicality, but rather how I make them feel. If that evokes a lot of emotion, then I think I can do well.”
Woolford’s two-year journey to Miss America has been anything but easy. It’s basically been her full-time job since she left a job as a legislative assistant for the Health Committee under state Sen. David Ige last year. She says she wakes up every morning thinking about what she needs to do to prepare for Miss America: “I have no occupation other than being Miss Hawaii, and it’s a job I take seriously.”
The big demand on her time now is working around the schedule of others. Preparing for Miss America really is a team effort, with many people volunteering their services, so it is important that Woolford coordinates all her activities. It may mean a 5 a.m. wake up to be at the salon for hair and makeup at 6, for a photo shoot at 10 that requires several costume changes and uncomfortable poses before running off to fulfill her Miss Hawaii duties that evening. Again, it goes back to volleyball.
“You’re used to the preparation process,” she says. “You’re used to stress, you’re used to a large amount of responsibility and accountability. It’s not like when I was on a team, but it is accountability to the whole state. That’s my team. I’m Team Hawaii,” she says before bursting into another big laugh.
Woolford graduated from UH with a degree in health studies, and hopes, with the help of Miss America, to continue her education. As a child, she’d dreamed of becoming a doctor, but if med school does not become a reality, she knows she wants to help others. First she has a pageant to win, and the family is getting nervous.
“Auntie Keone (Cook Anderson, her fiance’s mother and former Miss Hawaii
1980) is so excited and she’s an excitable person, and she’s always talking about how great everything is. It’s not like I’m not excited. I’m out there, but when it comes to preparing for the competition, I’m all ‘Eye of the Tiger.’”
The pageant happens Jan. 30 at Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino, and, in her mind’s eye, she has already seen the outcome.
“When I visualize it, it’s like someone throwing a water balloon in my face. I imagine myself to be crying a lot, not weeping uncontrollably, just overwhelming gratitude.”
But win, lose or draw, she’s going to have fun and enjoy the process, smiling all the way while indulging in the occasional red velvet cake, Thin Mints and peanut butter.
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