Crowning Glory

 

 

The day started at 3 a.m. It’s a Thursday, and Casana Fink has a whirlwind day ahead of her. First are two early morning television appearances – the first at 6 a.m. – in Gainesville. After that, there’s a tour of the pediatric wing at UF Health Shands Hospital, followed by a stop in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. A visit to LifeQuest Organ Recovery Services comes next before stopping by a school to read her book about organ donations to students.

It’s 5 p.m. now, and Fink is sitting in her white Toyota in the parking lot of the old Ocala train station touching up her makeup before an hour-long photo shoot for this article.

Such is a day in the life of Miss Florida.

Fink, a 25-year-old Ocalan, was crowned Miss Florida on June 29 in Lakeland, capturing the title from a field of 37 beauties. She will now go on to represent Florida in the Miss America Pageant in January.

Winning the Miss Florida title has been a goal of Fink’s since she started participating in pageants a dozen years ago. Her first title came when she was 13, winning the Miss Lake City Outstanding Teen Pageant. It was the first of a half dozen crowns she would win enroute to becoming Miss Florida, despite taking a four-year hiatus from pageants from 2015 to 2020. In addition to the Miss Lake City teen title, she was Miss Ocala Outstanding Teen and Miss Gainesville Outstanding Teen before moving up in age group and winning the Miss Gainesville, Miss Florida Citrus and this year, Miss Tampa crowns.

Now having achieved her goal of winning Miss Florida, Fink said her pageant experience has helped shape the woman she has become. Oh, she didn’t just win the Miss Florida crown, she won the evening gown, interview and talent (dancing) competitions of the pageant. The triple crown, as it were.

“I think some of my greatest attributes have come from this experience,” she said. “I just think I’m a better person for it.”

A great story to tell

Fink’s mother, Selena Fink, said the idea of entering the pageant world came from Joe Wallace, a family friend and retired College of Central Florida administrator who has been a Miss America preliminary pageant judge for more than four decades.

Wallace has followed Fink’s pageant career closely and been an advisor and coach along the way. He said her winning Miss Florida was the result of hard work, beauty, brains and, critically, “having a good story.”

And a good story it is.

When Fink was 14, her father, Jim Fink, was discovered by his brother collapsed in their front yard. He had suffered liver failure. Doctors determined he needed a transplant, and the long ordeal of finding a donor match began. Doctors gave Jim a 3 percent chance for survival.

It took a full year before Jim Fink got his transplant in 2015. It was a harrowing ordeal for the whole family. Casana Fink, who up until then had made introducing the arts to youth organizations like the Boys and Girls Club her pageant “community service initiative,” decided that encouraging organ donation would be her new cause.

For 14-year-old high school freshman, the experience was life-altering and frightening.

“I am grateful now, because it has helped define who I am,” Fink said of her father’s ordeal. “But it was a lot at my age … I talk a lot about that experience because we did not have a roadmap.”

“… If I’m experiencing this, and my family is experiencing this, I need to fight to help other families who are experiencing what we did without a roadmap.”

The importance of organ donation and ensuring availability of organs, for people like Jim Fink has been illuminated by Jim Fink himself. Despite doctors giving him just a 3 percent chance of survival after his liver failed, he is alive, well and thriving a decade later, able to work and travel at will. Everything’s normal, he said … “Except I have to take two pills a day, but otherwise nothing is different than my liver.”

When asked how it felt to have his daughter take his transplant experience and turn it into an advocacy project that has garnered statewide and national attention, Jim Fink responded: “It’s very humbling and it’s, obviously, life-altering.”

The organ transplant issue became more than a talking point during beauty pageants for Fink. Out of her embrace of the issue came the creation of a nonprofit, “Give to Live,” as well as a children’s book she authored, “The Gift of Life,” which Casana Fink distributed to every library in Florida. Plus, she donated more than 2,000 hours to organizations like Donate Life, LifeQuest Organ Recovery Services and Lifelink, all on the front lines of organ donations and transplants.

Her latest achievement involving transplants is being named chief operating officer of the Tampa-based advocacy group More Transplants More Life, which came about after its CEO saw her lobbying the halls of the Legislature in Tallahassee with effectiveness.

Beneath the crown

Whatever presumed stereotypes linger about the beauty pageant world, Fink is living proof that succeeding in that sphere requires hard work, dedication, education, constant improvement and professionalism.

For example, Fink has a telecommunications degree from UF and is currently completing her Master of Business Administration degree there as well. But that is hardly all she has accomplished during her collegiate years. She lived in London for a while, where she attended Conde Nast College of Fashion and Design, and lived in New York City as well, where she gained further experience in fashion design, including designing her own line of clothing. And on her resume submitted to the Miss Florida Pageant, she said one of her “bucket list” items in the next five years is to “source and design a full curated clothing collection.”

So, there’s clearly more to Miss Florida than a pretty face. And while Fink acknowledges the stereotypes that are associated with beauty queens, she said after her first pageant win, as Miss Lake City Teen – “that was the first time I thought it was cool” — she resolved to pursue her dreams of crowns and sashes her way, on her terms.

“I’ve always been about authenticity, so from then on I wanted to be my true self,” she said.

And what is her true self, according to her? Being empathetic, hard-working, goal-oriented and a loyal person. It has been a successful foundation for her pursuit of the Miss Florida title and, just maybe, Miss America.

“I’ve been able to integrate what is important to me into what I love,” Fink said.

The Miss America Pageant crown symbolizes five characteristics that the pageant process promotes. The four points of the crown represent service, scholarship, success and style, while the base of the crown represents sisterhood. Fink said her pageant experience has been guided by those principles.

Among the things that she is proudest of in her various reigns as a beauty queen, is being a positive reflection of the communities she has represented, including her hometown, Ocala.

“I’ve always found it extremely important to represent my community,” she said. “The greatest compliment I’ve gotten through all of this is people saying, “You’re so deserving of this.’”

Beyond the scholarships, crowns and contacts that being such a longtime and serious pageant contestant has brought Fink’s way, she said that the overall experience has definitely been defining for her and undoubtedly shaped who she is.

“Who I am is so tightly woven into this, I have no doubt it has shaped who I am today,” Fink said.

She said participating in pageants has taught her how to carry herself, helped develop entrepreneurial skills, stoked sensibilities and empathy for others, helped her learn how to relate to other people, taught her resilience and made her a good public speaker. 

The Fink team

But “the journey,” as Fink refers to her 12-year pageant experience, is not one she has taken alone. Besides her parents, an important supporter has been her boyfriend of nine years, Tanner Waite of Ocala.

“It’s been interesting,” Waite said of the years he’s watched Fink compete. “I’ve been involved in some things. Like I helped with designing her evening gown for Miss Florida. I just try to be supportive.”

Waite said seeing what it takes to rise to Fink’s level of success shows that the competitions are more than “beauty pageants.”

“It goes beyond aesthetics,” he said. “It’s elevated way beyond that. Yes, you’ve got to look good, but it’s so much more than that. It’s more than a beauty pageant.”

He said what Fink and her fellow competitors do and say in pageants shows they are “highly intelligent” and have acute “problem-solving skills.”

“You can’t prepare for everything,” Waite said. “You have to be able to problem solve on the fly.”

For Fink, her relationship with Waite has been important throughout the process, and she credits him with helping her reach her goal.

“We have a great relationship – just leaning on each other,” she said, adding that the two were taking a European vacation a day after this interview. “I don’t think I would have achieved this without his support. On the bad days, he was the one who was there.”

As for Fink’s parents, Jim and Selena, they know her pageant run will end with the Miss America Pageant – rules prohibit contestants from being Miss Florida more than once and from entering the Miss America Pageant more than once. For them, it is a bittersweet moment.

While having their daughter in pageants is expensive and time-consuming, they recognize what it has meant to their daughter’s development. They said her pageant experience has made Fink self-confident, an accomplished speaker, a debt-free graduate of college and graduate school and able to make invaluable connections.

“Our aspiration was for her to become a better version of herself, and she has done that,” Selena Fink said.

That said, they will not miss the weeks and months of preparation and the expense of that preparation — evening gowns cost $3,000 and up. 

Jim Fink said the daughter’s success is remarkable given that thousands of young women compete in these pageants every year, and getting to the Miss America Pageant is “surreal.”

“Did you know you’re more likely to have a son who goes to the Super Bowl than have a daughter who goes to Miss America?” he asked, offering no statistical support for his claim. But we get the point.

Yet, after she walks across a pageant stage one last time, the Finks are proud that their Miss Florida daughter will leave a legacy because of her advocacy for organ donation.

The proud parents said lawmakers in Tallahassee listen to Fink because, well, she has a good story.

As for Waite, he believes Fink is ready to move on to new opportunities and challenges.

“I think that chapter has about run its course,’” he said. “One of her goals was to win Mis Florida, and she’s done that.”

Fink said as much. Asked how much time she devotes each day to being prepared for her next pageant, she said about four hours a day — working out, eating right, practicing dance, working on her speaking, trying to prepare for pageant interviews and even practicing walking.

As for Miss America, her only goal is to savor the moment and soak it all in.

So, what now?

The 2025 Miss America pageant is scheduled for January in Orlando. For Fink, it will be Fink’s last pageant.

So, what are her chances of becoming Miss America?

We asked a couple experts.

Wallace, the Fink advisor who has a half century of Miss America preliminary pageant judging experience in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, believes Fink has a legitimate chance.

He cites her winning the evening gown, talent and interview portions of Miss Florida as a good precursor.

“I think she has a good chance because she won the three preliminaries at Miss Florida,” he said. “I would say she’ll be a strong contender for Miss America.”

We also asked Miss Florida Pageant Executive Director Keith Williams, who has a 45-year background in pageants, if Fink could win it all.

“I think so. Definitely,” he said. “If she just continues to be herself and she takes what she brought to Miss Florida, then I think she has a real shot at becoming Miss America.”

And her parents?

“I think she has a great chance,” said Selena Fink.

With Jim Fink quickly adding, “We just want her to go, enjoy it and have no expectations.”