by Wendy King
posted July 22, 2007
) Photo by Wendy King America's Junior Miss 2007 Nora Ali received a standing ovation from the Tivoli audience Saturday night following her award winning performance of "Zigeunerweisen" at the 2008 Tennessee Junior Miss Program. |
"When I have an overwhelming amount of work to do, I take 30 minute- to one-hour naps and I can finish everything after I wake up."
"Otherwise, I can't function."
The Mendota Heights, Minn., resident has a schedule that would overwhelm many adults. She will begin her studies at Harvard University in September where she will major in math and economics and, in her spare time, she will be on a nationwide tour promoting the Junior Miss "Be Your Best Self" programs at the state and local level.
On June 30, Miss Ali became the 50th America's Junior Miss in Mobile, Ala., where she was a quadruple preliminary winner receiving awards in scholastics, talent, self expression and interview and an additional $54,000 in scholarships for her Harvard education.
Miss Ali was in Chattanooga this weekend as a special guest of the Tennessee Junior Miss Program, which was also celebrating its 50th anniversary at the Tivoli. She arrived in Chattanooga directly from New York City, where she was concluding a media tour which included an appearance on CBS "The Early Show" along with attending a taping of MTV's "Total Request Live" and sitting in the VIP section for the John Mayer/Eric Clapton concert in Bryant Park as part of ABC's "Good Morning America" Summer Concert Series.
However, Miss Ali was unable to meet America's Junior Miss 1963 Diane Sawyer, the GMA co-anchor who was out of town on Friday.
From Chattanooga, she returned home to the Twin Cities to participate in the opening ceremonies of the Minnesota Twins' game against the Los Angeles Angels as well as playing "God Bless America" on the violin during the seventh inning stretch.
Miss Ali is not only following in her older sister Nicole's footsteps to Harvard, where she will be a senior ("She already has my schedule planned out," said Nora. "She knows what classes aren't worth my time and the ones I should be taking."), but her big sister was also influential in her decision to pursue piano and violin since she has already been playing the instruments for several years.
Nora, who received a lengthy standing ovation from the Tivoli audience Saturday night for her talent winning violin performance of "Zigeunerweisen", has studied violin for 13 years and piano for 11. She has been a featured soloist with seven orchestras in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area.
She is just the second Minnesotan to become America's Junior Miss. Amber Kvanli Ward was the state's first national medallion recipient in 1984.
She wouldn't have become the second winner from the Gopher State had it not been for a divine twist of fate which happened one day just over a year ago when she was doing research for scholarship opportunities.
She didn't know that the America's Junior Miss program even existed.
"I didn't know about Junior Miss until two weeks before Minnesota's at-large program," she recalled during a late lunch at Porter's Steakhouse. "I was doing an Internet search on scholarship competitions that involve talent."
"On the (AJM) website, it said that you should inquire about the competition during your sophomore year and, since I was starting my senior year, I thought it was too late."
"I e-mailed the chairperson anyway and she told me 'That's fine, you can still enter' and so I did randomly."
"If I hadn't done that Internet search that day, can you imagine�.It's amazing." she said.
The Minnesota program had only 10 contestants which is not acceptable to Miss Ali, who has set a personal goal of not only increasing participation in her home state but also nationally.
"Junior Miss is not well known in Minnesota, which is kind of sad." she remarked. "But more people know about it now and it's so nice to be able to introduce Junior Miss to Minnesota."
Miss Ali's parents emigrated from Bangladesh to the United States several years ago to study for their PhDs in chemistry. Her mother, who only had $12 in her pocket when she left Bangladesh, is now a research scientist at 3M where she has 30 patents pending, while her father is director of research and development for Kodak.
Miss Ali also has a 13-year-old sister, Leeza, who like her siblings is a pianist, but unlike them, has played at Carnegie Hall. Nora said that her younger sister has already expressed interest in participating in a future Junior Miss program.
Nora's Junior Miss victory has not gone unnoticed in her parents' homeland. She has been featured not only in front-page newspaper stories but also on Bengali television ("really cool").
She hopes to be able to make a return visit to Bangladesh during her Junior Miss year, but so far no plans are set. However, she is being honored with a special achievement award by the Bengali Association of America.
Miss Ali is the first America's Junior Miss to be of Muslim and Islamic descent and she has made it a priority to raise multi-cultural awareness and especially to educate her fellow Americans on the positive aspects of her heritage which is frequently associated with violence in a post September 11th world.
"It's a good time to have a girl who is not a Caucasian or not necessarily from a Christian background as America's Junior Miss because it represents what America is - it's a melting pot especially in our global atmosphere these days.
"My background is Muslim so it will be nice to be able to introduce Islam and to teach people about it because most people just know about the negative aspects of Islam because of terrorism and all of the negative publicity."
Miss Ali's American idol is Microsoft founder Bill Gates and, as a budding chief executive officer of Nicole's potential biomedical research company (she has been performing adult stem cell research for five years) and philanthropist, she makes no secret of her wish to meet him to discuss career strategy.
"He has a lot of interesting ideas about charity and making it profitable so more people are willing to donate," she said. "He also has some ideas about reforming the welfare system."
She is eagerly anticipating her non-stop year which will include reading the final Harry Potter book, and recalled her father's prophetic statement prior to entering the Minnesota program.
"He said, 'Nora, I think you can really do well in this competition.' My response was, 'We'll see,'"� she said.
Father knows best.
) Photo by Wendy King America's Junior Miss 2007 Nora Ali of Mendota Heights, Minn., was in Chattanooga Saturday as a special guest at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Tennessee Junior Miss program. |
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