Crowning success.

On June 26 in Salt Lake City, Utah, Amy Davis of Bountiful was crowned Miss Utah 2004 and will go on to the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City in September.

Davis chose brain injury awareness as her platform topic, understandably, since the 23-year-old Weber State University musical theater graduate suffered a serious brain injury herself three years ago. Miscommunication with her partner during a cheerleading stunt resulted in a fall that left her unconscious on the Weber State stadium track. Following two weeks in the hospital, and additional months recuperating at home, she returned to school--and the cheerleading team.

"I wanted to be as good as everyone else," she recalls. "I didn't want to be treated differently." Unfortunately, however, her balance and coordination were affected by the fall, so the team allowed her to switch instead to dancing. Also key to her recovery, she says, was her piano and violin training, "because I had to sit and focus." For the talent portion of the recent pageant she performed Chopin's "Revolutionary Etude."

Resuming her academic, musical and other pursuits was not easy for Davis. But her pageant success did not surprise her former Weber State cheer and dance instructor, Summer Willis. Willis told the Deseret Morning News that, considering Davis' remarkable talent, work ethic and perseverance, "I knew she was going to do it someday, she was just the type."