Miss Puyallup USA 2013: "I Came To Look For A Challenge"

Sabrina Salazar was watching the Miss USA pageant on TV earlier this year, when her father pointed something out.

“You’re 20 years old now, why don’t you try out for it?” he said.

Although Salazar had only joked about it in the past, she changed her tune.

“You know what, I will,” she said.

Now she is a candidate for Miss Washington USA, representing Puyallup, where she was born and raised. She’s never stopped appreciating it.

“As Miss Washington USA, you have to love yourself and also love your state and learn as much about it as possible,” Salazar said. “There are so many amazing things about our state that people pass right by.”

Salazar’s lifelong passion has been for sports. She was a Junior Olympian at age 14 in track and field and dances for the Tacoma Rainiers games. She was also one of the first 100 female wrestlers in an all-women's wrestling league in Washington state for Puyallup High School, taking after her brothers.

“I am very supportive of women doing anything men can do, especially because high school is a very hard time for girls,” Salazar said.

Meanwhile, she studies athletic training and sports management at Tacoma Community College.

“I’m not really sure which side of it I want to get into yet, either being a president of a club in the management side versus the training side, but I know I want to be in the sports field,” Salazar said.

Salazar’s platform as part of the competition is sexual assault awareness on college campuses. She hopes someday to speak to students, encouraging them to talk about it instead of hiding it.

“People don’t like to admit that it happens, but it does, and we need to talk about it,” she said.

As for her campaign to become Miss Washington USA, she is planning to walk around at the Saturday markets for others to be able to get to know her. She participated in Miss Hispanic Seafair in Seattle and is hoping to appear at the Washington State Fair. She also has a community service event with the Rainiers and a fundraiser coming up.

“We will be painting Tacoma beautiful and we’re just doing a lot of charity work, painting and pressure washing people’s houses,” said Salazar.

Her fundraiser is scheduled for Aug. 16 at Anthem Coffee Shop in Tacoma, with music and a raffle.

As for how life as a pageant candidate is treating her?

“It’s just showing me that people think pageant girls are just pretty faces, but it’s really not; it’s a lot of hard work to be a representative of your state or even someday of your country,” she said. “I came here to look for a challenge for myself.”