Elise Farmer strikes a relaxed pose,wearing her crown and pageant sash.
Submitted photo
Elise Farmer also travels for modeling gigs
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10-year-old Elise Farmer won the preteen division of the US American Miss Pennsylvania Pageant earlier this month.
Submitted photo
Step dancer, softball player and wrestler Elise Farmer recently has been able to add new accomplishments to her list.
Earlier this month the 10-year-old girl from Mountain Top, daughter of Khayla and Brandon Farmer, won the preteen division of the US American Miss PA pageant, held at Split Rock Lodge in the Poconos. And, she’s been getting steady modeling work.
“She’s keeping us very busy,” her mom, Khayla Farmer said during a mid-week telephone interview as she drove Elise home from a modeling gig in Hawthorne, N.Y. “Tomorrow’s Atlantic City and next week there’s a 3-day shoot in Philadelphia for an appliance company. We just got back from Texas, where the shoot was for American Girl dolls.”
Modeling shoots are fun, Elise said, noting for one of them she was called on to jump up and down in a bounce house.
“We just started (the modeling gigs) in February. She was 9,” Khayla Farmer remembered. “This is very uncharted territory for all of us. She has been getting so many offers. They are falling in love with her and using her for more and more stuff. They want to sign her for something with HBO.
Modeling was a factor in Elise winning the preteen division in the US American Miss PA pageant. “She won first place in Portfolio and first in Live Model Shoot,” Khayla Farmer, naming categories from the competition, which she described as Elise’s “first official pageant.”
As Elise prepares for the national competition, to be held in July in Jacksonville, Fla, she’ll be practicing an Irish step dance for the talent category.
She also will have monthly obligations as US American Miss PA and will be concentrating on raising money for charity.
Elise, who said her favorite subject at Rice Elementary School is math, wants to save her modeling salary and any pageant scholarship money she wins for college. She hopes to study communications, and imagines herself as a sports reporter, perhaps broadcasting interviews with her brother Brandon’s football team.
Her brother is 14 now, and plays for Scranton Prep, which adds to the busyness of the household.
“We’ve got an action-packed group of kids here,” Khayla Farmer said, admitting she does a lot of chauffeuring in addition to running her salon, Wildflower Hair Gallery, in Wilkes-Barre.
“You have no idea (how hectic it can get),” the busy mom said. “I live on coffee and Tylenol.”