More Than a Pretty Face, Meet Sara Burd, the Activist Beneath the Crown By Deborah Bostock-Kelley If asked what comes to mind when you hear pageant beauty queen, preconceived notions and negative stereotypes about the women who participate are often mentioned. However, the easiest way to dispel these misconceptions is to speak to the women behind the crown. Miss Global USA 2022 winner Sara Burd is a Tampa Bay native born and bred in Clearwater and has regularly dealt with this misunderstanding about pageantry. “First and foremost, pageant women are making a choice to be on stage. Pageantry is such an empowering industry. When I got into it, I was super low in confidence and self-esteem. I completely transformed my life
through it and met the most amazing, accomplished, and supportive women friends for life,” she said. “And people think it’s a women-only industry, but there’s also a lot of male pageant systems too.” One of Sara’s friends DJ Davids just won Mister Global USA 2021. With her platform of environmental and ocean conservation, the 5’10, Norwegian, twenty-seven-yearold model is just as comfortable on a surfboard in the water as she is out of it, campaigning to protect the oceans. “Constantly being at the beach and watching how the environment changed over the years made me very aware of the needs of our aquatic environment.”
A graduate of the College of Charleston in South Carolina with a Masters in Communication, in 2015, she got into competing through a nomination from her college sorority. “I loved it and had so much fun. I went back the next year and got second place. I started competing in preliminary pageants around the city of Charleston and competed for Miss South Carolina a few times,” she said. “The director of the College of Charleston introduced me to Miss Global, which was a new pageant system. I won Miss South Carolina Global in 2017 and enjoyed working with the national director at the national pageant. I decided to compete a couple more times, and I won this past summer.” Initially, she was first runner-
up, then received a surprise call two days later that Miss Global USA had stepped down and Sara would assume the coveted title. “Initially, I was bummed because I felt like my performance on stage was the best I’d ever done, so I was okay with the results. Then I got the call two days later. I am just thrilled.”
