Meagan Zerr seeks to empower women in quest for title of ‘Mrs. America’

Three months before Meagan (Donovan) Zerr exchanged “I do’s” with Mike Zerr on a beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, last week, she had the same feeling that that many future brides do: she wanted to shed a few pounds before their special day.

With “zero motivation” of latching onto the latest fad diet or heading to a fitness club, she chose somewhat of a different path to better herself. She signed up to be a candidate for the title of “Mrs. South Dakota.”

“I’ve always been a ‘Miss Congeniality’ fan, the Sandra Bullock movie from early 2000s,” Meagan shares. “I admire the confidence those women have and how poised they are. I’m all about self-empowerment and trying to be a better person, so I thought why not use some of my experience to try and motivate other people to reach for something that they think is crazy. Just because you’ve never done it before doesn’t mean that you can’t accomplish it.”

Until now, the “Brandon born and raised” Meagan had never considered the pageant world.

“It’s been a crazy, crazy experience and I’ve learned a ton about the pageant industry,” she said. “I had no idea that individuals own certain pageants. I didn’t know that in a state there are competing pageants, and I am not going to be the only ‘Mrs. South Dakota.’ There are technically two because there is the International division and then there is the America division,” in which she is competing in. 

Chalk it up to taking a leap of faith at the right time, Meagan has easily landed the title of “Mrs. Sioux Falls,” despite her Brandon residency. The pageant director encouraged her to compete under the “Mrs. Sioux Falls” title simply because of the number of community events and projects she’s involved with in Sioux Falls.

“I’m ‘Mrs. Brandon,’ absolutely, but I’m ‘Mrs. Sioux Falls’ just for PR reasons,” explains Meagan, who works as the director of operations for Sioux Falls-based Cresten Capital Holdings.

“Mrs. Sioux Falls” isn’t the only title in her pageant journey. On June 18 in Missouri, she’ll officially be crowned “Mrs. South Dakota.”

“Right now, I am ‘Mrs. Sioux Falls,’ and when I go to Missouri, there’s nobody else competing for Mrs. South Dakota, so I will leave that pageant as ‘Mrs. South Dakota,’” she said.

The June 18 pageant will also serve as a “test run” for the 2010 Brandon Valley High School graduate. She’ll compete alongside candidates for “Mrs. Missouri” and “Mrs. Florida” and will be critiqued as if she were competing against other women seeking the title of “Mrs. South Dakota.”

Her platform

Like all the other candidates, Meagan had to select a platform. For very personal reasons, she chose suicide prevention.

“I’m a suicide attempt survivor myself. They call that a ‘lived experience,’” she reveals.

Choosing just one platform, however, proved to be a difficult process, but her many choices elevated her desire to pursue the pageant world.

“I am also one-year sober from alcohol. I am a recovering alcoholic, so I could’ve done addiction and recovery. And, I am a two-time (thyroid) cancer survivor, so I could have done that,” she said.

With a history of addiction within her family, Meagan battled anorexia and bulimia. Depression and anxiety followed, which led to suicide attempts.

“I was really trying to pick a platform where I felt I could make the most impact and I felt that suicide prevention is definitely that platform for me, just because unfortunately, a lot of people are successful and there are so many signs showing you that someone is not doing well before they choose the path to take their own life,” she said. “I had been depressed and anxious for years until I had decided that was the only option left for me. There’s not a lot of people who are in a good place or are comfortable about taking their own life, and so I feel there’s so much more work that needs to be done in that area, and so that’s why I picked suicide prevention.”

By unveiling her personal story, Meagan hopes to help others who are facing similar battles.

“I really want to – not prove to myself, because I know that I can overcome all of those things because I’m here today – but prove to other people that there is another side to whatever you are going through. Everybody is going through something; it just might be different than what you are going through, and if you are vulnerable and share your story with others, you can help other people feel less alone and maybe give them a little hope,” she said. “I mean, how cool is it that you can have all of those bad experiences and still be able to stand on stage and be Mrs. South Dakota and hopefully be Mrs. America? It’s pretty cool.”

She’ll be sharing her personal story as the keynote speaker at a Helpline Center event on June 11. The Helpline Center is an organization she has worked with for several years. 

“It’s hard to talk about it just because my sense of humor is self-deprecating and it’s such a serious topic, and so I have to find the perfect balance there,” she said. “I want to pull on heartstrings, I want people to see that I am a real person but kind of just like an ‘easy breezy’ person at the same time. Suicide is no joke, so that’s been a new test for my public-speaking experience.”

With a new mindset she’s gained through her recovery process, Meagan described herself as “the goofy, silly, funny friend” on the outside, but on the inside, she was struggling.

“A lot of the times that people who are struggling, most of them are putting on a face,” she said.

Now 30, Meagan says she feels the best that she ever has felt.

“People tell you that 30 is a turning point, because your 20s are so fun, but my 20s were miserable,” she said. “This year has been truly the best year of my life.”

She recently celebrated her one year of sobriety, and said it’s a day that she never wants to forget.

“It was such an accomplishment striving for because the motto for Alcoholics Anonymous is ‘Just one day at a time.’ It’s truly a daily battle,” she said.

She’s also ditched the depression meds she once needed to function, another milestone she’s elated to have achieve.

“At one point I was maxed out on three of them and then I was taking medications for the side-effects I was getting, so I was taking seven pills a day. I just felt numb and I truly thought if this is what it feels like to have your system balanced is just being numb all of the time and you’re never happy or sad, I don’t want to live,” she said.

Although suicidal thoughts no longer haunt Meagan, she does take situationally a prescribed anxiety med and enlists the comfort of her service animal named Molly.

“That helps me a ton,” she said. “She comes to work with me, we go on work trips together, she’s such a sweet girl. I just get anxious in situations that I’m not familiar with, as I feel a lot of people are but I just take it to an extreme. It’s like everything is ‘closing in’ and she really helps because she’s always familiar, she’s my girl.”

As for thyroid cancer, this month if her scans come back clear, she will have been in remission for a full year.

Back to the pageant

For the Missouri pageant, Meagan is preparing for the interview process, swimsuit, evening gown and fun fashion competitions.

The interview, she said, accounts for a huge chunk of her score. She will be interviewed by several judges for 3-5 minutes in a round robin format. In the limited time, Meagan anticipates each judge will ask one question.

“I’m long-winded,” she confesses, “so a lot of the coaching and planning is trying to get that into a three-minute chunk with one person who’s never met me, is a lot.”

In those limited moments, she’ll do her best to convey her personality and keep filler words, such as ‘um’ and ‘like’ out of her responses.

“They also don’t want you to use your hands, and I am a hands talker, so it may be very hard for me,” she said. “I might have to sit on them.” 

As for the swimsuit competition, Meagan has chosen to wear a one-piece, although a two-piece is allowed.

She’s also found two evening gowns, one for the Missiouri pageant and another for the “Mrs. America” competition in Las Vegas in November, where she will represent her home state of South Dakota.

Her fun fashion is a one-shoulder, orange jumpsuit.

“It’s really pretty,” she said. “I’m very glam, so I’m going ‘full out.’”

At the Mrs. America Pageant in Vegas, Meagan will compete in interview, swimsuit, evening gown and state costume.

“The costumes are so elaborate,” she said.

She’s decided to forgo the Mount Rushmore theme, and instead has chosen to be a ringneck pheasant.

“The nickname for a pheasant is a ‘prairie peacock,’ and I kind of feel like I embody what a prairie peacock is,” she said. 

People from the community have been donating pheasant feathers for her costume.

“Brandon has been super supportive and trying to help me with this costume, because I am going full Vegas showgirl. Feathers everywhere,” she said. “It is a beautiful bird and I think it will be super-fun.”

Her costume is being made by “Costume Carol” from Omaha.

“Costume Carol” came to her in a roundabout way.

“My mom went to prom with a guy from O’Gorman who now runs the theatre department at the University of Mary and works with a set designer for movies (hence Carol),” she said.

Lessons to be learned

Her journey leading up to the June 18 pageant has been fchocked ull of learning experiences, Meagan said.

For starters, she’s come to realize that she “tends to over-communicate.”

“And that is not everybody’s preferred communication style,” she said. “Whenever I’m communicating with somebody, I try to think of who, what, where, when and why when I’m explaining things to people. Even if we already talked about it, I’m still going to throw it in the email or the communication plan so that you have something to refer back to, but I am learning that not everybody adopts that same style of communication, and that has been a bit of a struggle, because I’m such a planner.”

She’s also learned that she is a “girly girl” but not a “girls’ girl.”

“I get along better in groups of men and women,” she said, “so, I’m a little nervous about all of the girl time when I will be in Vegas for 10 days.”

Lastly, she’s learned that even though she’s never attempted something like this before, things the judges will be looking for come naturally to her.

“Like being yourself in a group of people you’ve never met before,” she explains. “I have always been an extrovert, so that’s not been an issue of mine.”

The 6-inch heels

In the pageant world, Meagan said they also look for height in the candidates.

“And I am blessed in the height department. I am 6-foot-3,” she said.

She’s going to be even taller on the pageant stage, thanks to the pageant-issued six-inch heels.

“I begged to please not have to wear the six-inch heels,” she said, hoping they’d allow her to wear three-inch heels instead.

“I can still promise you that if I wear the three-inch heels for the pageant, I am still going to be the tallest girls there among the women wearing six-inch heels,” she said, noting with the heels that she’ll stand 6-foot-9.

“I think 6-6 is still a little extreme, but it’s less extreme than 6-9.”

The pageant has also provided her with a custom-made crown and her Mrs. South Dakota sash.

“They gave me a cute, little box and there was a string of shoes that said, ‘Congrats’ all the way across each little shoe. They also put a crown for Mike in there that said, ‘Hear ye, hear ye, we now pronounce Mr. Zerr as Mr. Sioux Falls’, so that was pretty cute,” she said, adding that he’s not as keen on the title as she is.

For the Missouri pageant, she’ll receive an even bigger crown with a sparkly sash, both of which she admits her excitement to received.

“I thought this crown was beautiful. Apparently, they get them custom made, so I ordered an acrylic box to keep it in, and I ordered one for the Mrs. South Dakota crown, too, and hopefully, Mrs. America,” she said.

Determined to

win the crown

Although Mrs. South Dakota has yet place in the top eight before at the Mrs. America pageant, Meagan clearly has her eye on the prize.

“We’ve placed Top 15, but we’ve never placed Top 8, and my goal is to win,” she said. “I’m very competitive and I want to be Mrs. America, and if I made it in the Top 8, I would still feel like that is an accomplishment because it’s never been done before.”

Bearing the title of Mrs. South Dakota, her year-long rein will entail a plethora of public appearances, such as reading to kids at the library or talking to high school kids across the state promoting her suicide prevention platform.

“I am, by no means an expert, but I feel that sharing my story might help some kids,” she said. “Helping the whole state is really the goal of Mrs. South Dakota, and as Mrs. America, your goal is to go to each state in a calendar year and do a parade, a community event or help judge another pageant.” 

If Meagan is crowned Mrs. America, she’ll then advance to the Mrs. World competition.

Misconceptions

Anyone can be a pageant winner, no matter shape or size, Meagan said.

“I feel that there is a common misconception that the women who are a part of it have to look a certain way and try to be superior to other people. That is absolutely not what it is not all about; they accept all shapes and sizes. It is about empowering young girls and women across the country and really honing in on your platform and trying to help the community as much as you can,” she said. “It’s very community involved. I’ve never once had somebody tell me that you have to look or be a certain way to be successful on that stage, so I kind of want to break the stigma there. Anybody can do a pageant, and if I can do it, literally, anybody can do it.”