Pageant News Bureau - Stacey Cronan

Stacey Cronan, Ms. East Coast Ambassador 2002, has been in lots of pageants. She has even been in a few movies. (Location shooting is common in North Carolina, and an attractive girl can usually find small parts.) She is also a military veteran and a student of criminology.

But sooner or later, her life has always come back to the kids.

As a pageant contestant in her early teens, she had the usual mixed luck with judges. But she was a hit with the parents of younger competitors. They liked her sense of responsibility, and the rapport she had with children. "They asked me to babysit," she says. "And being young, I loved the opportunity." Though it wasn't a career, it was definitely a job.

Ms. Cronan continued in pageants as she grew up. But she put babysitting far behind her, becoming a lifeguard, then a college student, then a member of the U.S. Air Force, with an eventual assignment to Iceland.

But something occurred that she could never have foreseen. On a winter day in 2000, the young enlisted woman happened upon a crowd of frightened people and managed to save the life of a toddler by using the Heimlich maneuver. This act of heroism -- or being "in the right place at the right time," as she puts it -- was widely publicized.

When she returned home after serving her country, her reputation had preceded her. Offers of babysitting work poured in. Part-time jobs were not what she was looking for, but she did accept a position. She is now a full-time nanny.

If she never pursues another career, Ms. Cronan will be a boon to society. When you take care of kids, you take care of our future. But we expect to see more of her. When you're an attractive girl . . .

A child's best friend