When Mya Leonardo, 21, was in fifth grade at Potter Elementary School, she met a Miss Massachusetts pageant winner for the first time and was immediately starstruck.

Her beauty, her poise, the way she spoke confidently and encouraged the students with their work – Leonardo was inspired. Flipping back through her yearbook from that year, Leonardo finds her yearbook immortalized as her class's “Future Miss Massachusetts.”

Although her dream of winning the title has not yet been fully realized, Leonardo competed in the Miss Massachusetts pageant for the third time on Saturday, June 22, securing second place and a $2,500 scholarship.

“It still feels absolutely unreal,” Leonardo said of her results. “I'm so excited and proud of myself and the hard work I put in. To see it pay off is amazing.”

The Miss Massachusetts Scholarship Foundation is a nonprofit organization that hosts a scholarship pageant each year. This year, 25 women competed and Kiersten Khoury received the first prize of $15,000 and the title of Miss Massachusetts.

“Kiersten Khoury is a phenomenal young woman,” Leonardo said. “I'm so happy she won. She deserves the best. … I'm really grateful to have been up there with her and the other women around me. It was truly an incredible experience.”

Leonardo graduated from Dartmouth High School in 2021 and is now entering her senior year at Northeastern University, where she is studying biology as part of her dental education program. She said she plans to attend dental school after graduation.

Her charitable initiative goes hand in hand with her passion for the dental industry. Leonardo works for Smart Smiles, a school-based oral health program that focuses on preventing dental disease.

Her previous work includes publishing a children's book called Maggie and Her Mighty Braces, and she hopes to publish another book next month called Maggie's Trip to the Dentist.

Leonardo said she has also been holding free oral hygiene workshops at schools across the state. She brings along “Molar the Dragon” to help her interact with the children and practice her techniques, as well as a supply of toothbrushes to hand out that she collected through the Smart Smiles toothbrush drive.

“I teach people the importance of taking care of their teeth while also giving them confidence and a confident smile, because that’s important too,” she added.

She said her goal is to start her own nonprofit, the Pearly Whites Foundation, next year.

In addition to dentistry, Leonardo has a passion for dance, which, among other things, led her to start participating in beauty pageants in 2018.

When she was about 15, she went to Erin Rae’s dance school and realized: “I have to do this,” she said.

For her talent portion of the Miss Massachusetts pageant, Leonardo performed a tap dance to Andy Grammar's “Good To Be Alive,” which she hopes “got the crowd going” and showcased her bubbly personality.

Of the classes Leonardo has taken for Miss Massachusetts, this year was “the best class ever,” she said.

She talked about how she often worries about her performance, which makes her nervous. This year, however, was different.

“I had so much fun and enjoyed it so much that on the night of the finale, I felt so comfortable with my performance and my demeanor that no matter what happened on Saturday night, I would be happy with what I had shown the judges and shown the community that week,” Leonardo said.

She added that she hopes to carry that energy into next season and encouraged other young women to get involved.

“This organization has brought me so much over the last six years, with interview skills, public speaking, networking, finding my true self, increasing my confidence [and] “Finding the greatest sisterhood,” Leonardo said, adding that she would be happy to help and that anyone interested can contact her at [email protected].