- November 22, 2024
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Former Flagler Palm Coast and Mainland basketball player Lauren Stewart has been selected to represent the University Park area of Miami in the 2023 Miss Florida Teen USA pageant in May, according to a press release from Girlbossing Inc., the pageant’s production company.
Stewart played basketball at FPC through her junior season before transferring to Mainland High. She graduated from Mainland Summa Cum Laude with a 4.3 GPA in 2022. She was an all-area basketball player and surpassed 1,000 career points in scoring as a junior.
She currently is a freshman business student at Florida International University in Miami, where she has been on the dean’s list and joined the honors college. In her free time, she tutors children in reading and math.
According to the press release, her selection to the pageant “was based on her academic standing, involvement in the community, her passion for the pursuit of excellence and her interest in empowering other young women to follow in her footsteps.”
In 2020, right before her junior year of high school, Stewart was involved in a golf cart accident that left her with a broken nose and serious injury to the right side of her face. She was bed-ridden for a month and ordered to stay out of the sun for a year. Doctors told her she may never look the same again.
She still has some scars and wears them as a badge of strength.
“As Miss University Park, I want to use my platform to inspire hope,” she said. “With the opportunity to be in the Miss Florida Teen USA pageant, I would love for other accident victims to think, ‘if she can do it, so can I.’
“I know what it’s like to question my worth and feel like my life is over after injury. Being in that accident tested me emotionally, physically, and spiritually more than anything else in my life. Regardless of the pain that the situation caused, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Going through that hardship made me come out stronger on the other side and allowed me to see life through a new lens. I now refuse to waste my time regretting the horrid day that vehicle crashed. Instead, I focus on celebrating my recovery and the people who were there by my side. I want to give people hope that even though life may be tough at the moment, it will get better.”
