By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
LAKEVILLE — Being Miss Indiana would be nice, but Plymouth’s Nicole Rash has the whole thing in perspective.
“I really just want to represent my family and my community in a way I can be proud of,” she said at her kickoff part at Occasions in Lakeville. “Winning is always nice, but making my community proud is really what it’s about.”
Rash is the current Miss Ball State and she hopes to represent her state in the next Miss America pageant. In order to do that, she first has to become Miss Indiana at this year’s pageant in Zionsville. Rash will compete the week of June 17 to take home the coveted title decided on June 23.
Making it extra special for the family is that her cousin,  7-year-old Olivia Emmons will be making the trip as her “princess.”
“I’m really, really happy,” said Olivia of her cousin’s success. “I hope lots of people will come out and support her.”
Nicole began her career in pageants at a young age, too.
“I started at 3 I think, but I didn’t do anything after that,” she said. “I didn’t get back involved until I was 21 and really I think that might actually have helped me because I wasn’t like everybody else that had competed all their lives.
“I hope there is a freshness and genuineness to me that people like.”
Rash has a genuineness of experience in life. Fluent in Spanish, she works as a translator at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, and learned the language and culture first hand. She spent a year as an exchange student in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
“If you want to communicate, you learn to speak the language that everybody else is speaking,” she said with a laugh. “I have a great interest in other cultures and languages and I would definitely encourage anyone who has an opportunity to be an exchange student to go for it. It was a wonderful opportunity and experience for me.”
It’s the opportunity that the pageant offers that is a big attraction to Rash for being Miss Indiana.
“The scholarships are amazing,” she said. “I think it’s remarkable the amount of opportunities the Miss America pageant gives young women in scholarships. That is a very big part of the experience.”
If successful in her bid Rash already knows where her studies will be.
“I love fashion and design,” she said. “I’ve designed my own gowns for the pageants and I’ve done very well in that part of the competition. I would like to continue that either as a designer or fashion reporter. It’s a passion of mine.”