Miss AK prepares for national stage

clipped from media.www.thenorthernlight.org For one Alaskan, the month of January is not just the start of a new year, but the beginning of new possibilities. UAA student Stephanie Jeffers, a 23-year-old theater major, is the state's 50th Miss Alaska, and in the last week of the month, she will be in Las Vegas for the 78th annual Miss America Pageant. "Stephanie is very ambitious and very spirited," director of the Miss Alaska Scholarship Foundation, Bonnie Faulk said. "She's a highly intelligent young woman and can articulate what she needs to say very easily." Jeffers started competing in the Miss Alaska pageant to earn scholarship money for school. After completing a Biology degree at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, she returned home to Alaska and gave the pageant another shot.