By: Zoey Lyttle
September 19, 2025
Abbie Stockard didn’t grow up competing in the pageantry world, but once she started, she quickly found out how much it had to offer her.
She got her start on the stage during her freshman year of college, when she learned that the winner of Miss Auburn University is awarded one year of free tuition. She knew that that type of scholarship money would be a game-changer for her mother and father.
“My parents never let me feel the weight of their sacrifices, but I knew that there was a burden,” she tells PEOPLE, referring to the tuition they paid for her and her twin brother at Auburn University. “I just was looking for any way I could to help them.”
Stockard adds, “I remember thinking, well, I feel like it’d be silly not to just go for it.”
She learned about the pageant with only about a week to pull her act together and enter, but Stockard was determined. She borrowed her evening gown, rehearsed an old dance she learned from high school and put her best foot forward.
The hopeful student didn’t win. Stockard nabbed the third runner-up spot, but she also ignited an inner spark that would eventually flame into a Miss America title some years down the line. Plus, in addition to her newly discovered interest in pageantry, Stockard was inspired by her mother’s hard work to set her up for greatness.
“My parents are divorced, and when I was going into my freshman year, my mom was working four jobs,” she explains. “They never complained about it. My parents are amazing and work so hard, but obviously when my mom can’t come to events because she’s having to work or she’s having to stay home late … it doesn’t take them having to say anything to notice.”
Stockard took note of her university’s steep tuition, and she saw how it added up alongside her dance lesson bills. She felt compelled to help out her mom in some capacity.
“I could see her struggling … I didn’t know how she was doing it,” says the pageant queen. “Going into my freshman year, I couldn’t work a job because I was so busy at Auburn, so I saw all of that. It was very revealing, and that’s kind of what made me want to just try and see how it went.”
Stockard didn’t know her future in pageants would lead to national success at the time of her first try in Miss Auburn University. All she knew then was that she enjoyed participating in the competition, and she wanted to pay it forward where her parents were concerned.
Pageantry proved to be a different type of performance than dance. Stockard has been dancing since she was a young girl, and she worked her way to the collegiate level on Auburn’s Tiger Paw dance team. But pageantry, she found, required a new type of poise and confidence in things like public speaking. Luckily, Stockard was up for a new challenge.
“I saw that there was another local preliminary in Birmingham that very next weekend, so I ended up winning that one,” she remembers of her first title, which took her to the statewide level. Miss Alabama took a few tries, but Stockard was finally crowned winner on her third try in the pageant.
This September, Stockard finished her reign as Miss America 2025 and crowned her successor, Cassie Donegan. The national title demanded a lot of time, effort and thought from Stockard. She spent the past year constantly on flights, making her way to various places to make appearances and speak to crowds.
“You’re constantly in the spotlight. You’re given a national platform, people are looking at you, they’re making opinions about you, they care what you have to say,” she explains, noting that the pressure was palpable from the start.
“I remember after I won, the first thing I said in the car with the Miss America team was, ‘Can I actually do this?’ Because I am a people pleaser, and I didn’t want to not live up to the expectations people had of me,” says Stockard. “But as time started going on and I started doing more and more appearances, honestly, I just felt that pressure drop and I didn’t feel any pressure at all.”
Stockard put her regular, day-to-day life on hold to meet the requirements of the storied title — and that included pausing nursing school. In many ways, she’s had to do a bit of starting over since returning to life beyond Miss America, but she’s coming at it with a refreshed, reinvigorated perspective.
“I feel like I’ve grown so much from the Abbie that I was before I won Miss America. It’s so funny. I keep having moments of just sitting in class listening to lectures and I’m just like, ‘Wow, what did I just do the past year of my life?’” she tells PEOPLE.
“Obviously, I’m not doing a lot of public speaking in my nursing classes, but I am really excited because I finally have become comfortable with it and unafraid,” Stockard continues. “I’ve been able to book several appearances just as Abbie over the next few months. Miss America helped equip me with that.”
Between all of the pageant wins that led her to the national title, Stockard had received over $89,000 in tuition scholarships. She’s been able to pay off all of her student loans, and she’s going to be debt-free when she graduates from nursing school.
“It really has changed my life and my family’s life,” she reflects. Stockard hopes it’ll make a difference for the next person who needs a hand.
“With every appearance I’ve gone to this whole year, I tried to shed light on the scholarship money, because I still think a lot of people just don’t know that that’s what the Miss America organization is,” says Stockard. “I know that there are young women out there who are in a similar position that I was in, and they need a solution, a way to help. I hope people see that Miss America can be that answer for them.”
Read the article HERE: https://people.com/abbie-stockard-reveals-how-miss-america-changed-her-familys-life-exclusive-11813248
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