Meet Tiffany Ellington

We recently connected with Tiffany Ellington and have shared our conversation below.

Tiffany, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I had the amazing opportunity to grow up on a farm in Indiana. The life skills I learned there have shaped me to be who I am today – early mornings and late nights in the barn taught me that the only way to accomplish your goals is to put the necessary work in. That has carried over to my career and my work as a titleholder in the Miss America organization. Whether I am volunteering early in the morning at Kids Need to Read or spending time with the younger girls in the organization, I strive to accomplish my goals and be better every day.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

While I wear many hats, the hat that has beautifully combined all my other skills is being a titleholder in the Miss America Organization. I am currently the 2025 Miss Peoria and will be competing for the job of Miss Arizona this June. MAO is the largest scholarship provider for young women in the country and I was able to complete my Masters in Business Administration on a full ride thanks to the organization.

During the year, I advocate for my social impact called “Access Books”. I work with libraries and a local nonprofit called Kids Need to Read to get books into the hands of children. Currently in the United States, 2/3rds of children in poverty don’t have access to a single book in their home. I am starting to break that cycle and increase access to books.

Kids Need to Reach serves over 100k children every year and as a volunteer and board member I have been able to have a direct impact on those numbers for the last five years.

I want to help others experience the joy of reading.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. How to carry myself in varying situations: I intentionally put this skill as number one. In high school I had the incredible opportunity to compete in Speech and Debate. This gave the strong baseline I needed to articulate my thoughts. Competing in pageants only enhanced that skill. It also put me in positions where I was in rooms where I didn’t know anyone and had to navigate social situations. The final touch to all of this is the ability to put myself together from hair to makeup to outfits. Whether I’m in a professional setting or volunteering being able to meet the need and exceed expectations is critically important. The reason these skills are so valuable is they are applicable to every day situations – especially my career.

2. Confidence: not to be confused with arrogance, confidence is a critical piece of advancing your path no matter what you’re doing. But here’s the catch, true confidence is based on competence. You may not know everything- I promise you, you don’t. But rise to the situation. Do the research, ask the questions so when the time is right you can enter a room and command it with confidence.

3. Assume positive intent: I took this directly from Small Giants – where I’ve worked since college. In the heat of a moment, it is very easy to assume that everyone is out to get you, but if you have the emotional control to take a step back and look at a situation from their perspective you will probably have a much better time reaching a mutual beneficial outcome.

These skills and many more are skills that I try to keep in the front of my mind. That being said, the characteristic above all other is Faith. My entire life is built on my Faith in God. Without him I fall short in every way and it only through him that I have the strength and ability to succeed.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

This question stands out to me because I think it’s a false dichotomy to have to pick between the two. One of the aspects that I love about Miss America is how well rounded you must be to do well in the program. There are five phases of competition. 1. Private interview. 2. Talent. 3. Evening gown. 4. Fitness. 5. On stage question.

You must be good at all of the above to do well in competition. And let me tell you, I’m so thankful for this structure because it has pushed me to work on improvement in every area. For example: I’m currently learning a new talent because I see the value it would bring to the community as a titleholder.

Here’s the catch: I shouldn’t learn new things at the expense at what I have built skills up in. I have always loved the interview phase of competition and it would be a miss to stop practicing because I was focused on my talent.

The best answer is a balance of all to present the best version of yourself.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Misspeoriaaz
• Linkedin: Tiffany Ellington

Image Credits

Nicole Walker Photography
Nicole J Smith (personal photo)