East Cobber Named Miss Georgia

graduate Michaela Grace Lackey was crowned Miss Georgia 2011 on Saturday night.

The title comes with a $15,000 scholarship and a spot in the Miss America Pageant in Las Vegas in January.

Lackey beat out 39 other winners of local qualifying pageants to take the crown in Columbus after four nights of competition. She’s the third consecutive Miss Georgia from Cobb County, according to the Marietta Daily Journal, after Christina McCauley in 2010 and Emily Cook in 2009.

The 21-year-old dancer from East Cobb is a senior at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. She earned her way into the Miss Georgia Pageant by winning the Miss Heart of Lakes title in Rabun County in October.

Lackey is a veteran of pageant championships. She was Miss Cobb County’s Outstanding Teen and Miss Georgia’s Outstanding Teen in 2007 and was the 2010 Miss Cherokee Rose.

She is the first Georgia’s Outstanding Teen to become Miss Georgia, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. She won Miss Georgia on her second try, just as she won the teen title on her second try.

The daughter of Doug and Sherri Lackey performed ballet for her talent, the newspaper said. She won the talent competition Friday night, along with a $500 prize.

Dance also is at the core of her platform, PASSION: Performing Artists Serving Society in Our Neighborhoods.

“Through my dancing, I have been able to expose the community to the performing arts by taking the performance to the people,” Lackey wrote on the PASSION Facebook page. “Dance is my passion, but I LOVE collaborating with other art fields to combine all different types of art together.”

She said she has raised more than $38,000 for charities through dance.

Lackey was the first runner-up at the Miss Cobb County Pageant in August. The winner of that title, Brianna Jewett of Marietta, was fourth runner-up Saturday night in Columbus.

Jewett won the eveningwear competition Thursday night, earning $250.

Meanwhile, the pageant calendar keeps turning. The application deadline for this year’s Miss Cobb County Pageant is June 26; the pageant will be Aug. 6 at the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre in Marietta.

Contestants must live, work or attend college in Cobb, Cherokee, Paulding or Fulton County.

For more information, contact Gene Phillips at 770-435-6378 or misscobbcounty@yahoo.com.