Joye Forrest, a 19 year old freshman at California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, CA was recently crowned Miss Teen Missouri U.S.A. 2015 in Kansas City during the annual beauty Pageant. With her crown she becomes the first African American teen to hold the title in Missouri pageant history.
Forrest will represent Missouri in the national pageant in the Miss Teen U.S.A. 2015 pageant in Washington, D. C. during first week of July, 2015.
Forrest addressed the issue of abstinence before and until marriage during the Question and Answer session faced by all of the finalists.
“I want to encourage others to be courageous, stand up for what they believe and not to succumb to peer pressure for all the wrong reasons,” Forrest said.
She entered the Miss Teen U.S.A. Missouri competition as Miss Spanish Lake Teen. Forrest has an extensive background in the performing arts as a singer, pianist, and dancer.
Forrest has performed with Dancing in the Streets St. Louis, So You Think You Can Dance with Debbie Allen Advance Dance Company, National American Miss Spirit, Contemporary Dancer Award, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and L.D. Live TV Ballet Eclectica, as principal dancer. Her community involvement includes mission work in Mexico, working with an orphanage in Ghana, Africa, Doorways HIV/AIDS Center in Saint Louis.
She’s also played an integral role in I Am My Sister’s Keeper, a privately funded charity started in 2008 by her mother’s company and Joye which solely benefits a group of 30 Single low-income Mothers with children, who are living with HIV/AIDS.
During her reign as Miss Teen Missouri USA 2015, Forrest says that she will continue to be a spoken voice to further the efforts and support of children affected by HIV/AIDS who are often forgotten.” Her future ambition is to travel the world as a professional dancer, and later to become a broadcast news reporter.
