Miss Luzerne County Teen brings Parkinson’s awareness talk to Hanover Memorial

HANOVER TWP. — The pink suit, glittering tiara and “Miss Luzerne County Teen” sash seemed to impress a lot of the Hanover Memorial Elementary students, but Arianna Spurlin got one of the biggest rises when she told the fourth and fifth grade students: “I’m 16 and I wrote a book, can you believe that?”

“No way!” one youngster shouted amid the gasps of the crowd gathered Tuesday morning for Spurlin’s appearance in the auditorium.

Well, way, and she proved it by pulling the paperback out and reading “Pop with Parkinson’s” to the youngsters, many of them clearly listening with wide-eyed enthusiasm.

A Dallas High School sophomore, Spurlin had to spend a few moments moving to her left so the grade school students could see the pages of the book being projected on the screen behind her, but once that was settled she read the book and conducted a game show style quiz that had many of the children out of their seats avidly trying to get called upon.

It’s all part of Spurlin’s community service effort, “Unshakeable: Raising Awareness of Parkinson’s,” designed to educate people about the disease and how to identify it. Both the book and her comments afterward highlighted how she had to come to terms with it herself when her grandfather was diagnosed.

She compared the condition to the hit animated film “Inside Out,” in which parts of a young child’s brain personified by cartoon characters stop working, with other parts stepping up to get things done. “With Parkinson’s, that doesn’t happen,” she said.

Which made the diagnosis of her grandfather frightening. “At first I was so scared,” she explained. But learning about the disease took the fear away. “It’s just a boo boo. It’s a boo boo you can’t put a bandage on, but it doesn’t control your life.”

Spurlin’s sash, tiara and title come through the NEPA Scholarship Competition Association, Inc., a not-for-profit organization providing the opportunity for young woman to get involved with the Miss America Organization at a local level.

Spurlin fielded questions about winning the title, which involved being interviewed by judges, facing questions in front of a large crowd, multiple outfit changes in a matter of hours and a tap dancing demonstration.

Asked if she enjoyed it, she unabashedly answered “I love it.” And asked her favorite part, she got a big roar of approval by insisting it was “getting to talk with you.”