Shauna Pender
Overview
Shauna Pender is a Miss America preliminary scholarship winner who was crowned Miss Florida
Miss Florida
The Miss Florida competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Florida in the Miss America pageant. Florida has twice won the Miss America crown.-Winners:* Assumed the crown after Miss Florida won Miss America...

 in 2003 after preceding Miss Florida Ericka Dunlap
Ericka Dunlap
Ericka Dunlap is an American beauty pageant titleholder from Orlando, Florida who was named Miss Florida 2003 and subsequently crowned Miss America 2004. Dunlap was the first African American woman to be crowned Miss Florida....

 won Miss America
Miss America
The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...

. She had previously won Miss St. Petersburg. She was born in 1979.
Pender graduated from Houston County High School near Warner Robins, Georgia
Warner Robins, Georgia
Warner Robins is a city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located primarily in Houston County with a small portion in Peach County. The city has its own metropolitan statistical area . As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 48,804...

.

In 2003, Pender graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre from Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...

.
Pender appeared on several network program broadcasts as an actress and in numerous media reports on her accident and recovery.
Quotations

I go through life thinking it's all going to end tomorrow.

I don't believe in self-promotion, really I can't be arsed.

I always wanted to be an actor. I had the arrogance to believe I couldn't be anything else.

As far as I'm concerned, I want to be nowhere else. It's difficult in film because everybody wants to make a safe bet with roles. But if you are going to do stuff then you should be getting strong reactions. I don't want audiences to be going, "Yeah, that's all right."

It's something else. I'm speechless. I've just got to step up to the plate and deal with it. I had a confidence about it but then that's because of the people around me who made me feel good about it. I knew positively on Monday. I was in Baltimore when I took the call. My first reaction was I needed a drink.

I hate handguns. Handguns are used to shoot people and as long as they are around, people will shoot each other. That's a simple fact. I've seen a bullet wound and it was a mess. It was on a shoot and it scared me. Bullets have a nasty habit of finding their target and that's what's scary about them.

If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me - which, sadly, I have done - it would drive me insane.

Interview with Entertainment Weekly magazine.

 
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