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16 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • March 2020 Has being crowned Miss America changed your life overnight? CAMILLE: It's changed everything. When I became Miss Virginia back in June, I had to take a year off of my education. I was driving around Virginia educating children about drug and alcohol safety. So now that I've got a promotion, instead of driving around Virginia, I will travel around the United States and advocate for my social impact initiative and be a national representative of a brand. Was it surreal to win the crown? CAMILLE: Oh yeah, absolutely. I don't take myself too seriously, so I sure as heck did not think that I was going to end up coming out of that competition as the win- ner. I wanted to make sure I had the most fun and to make friends with the other 50 women who were there. So how old were you when you discovered that you loved science? CAMILLE: Gosh, I can't even put an age on it because it was something I always loved. I don't have an "aha" moment, but it was always some- thing I was drawn toward. When I was a little child, my dad would bring me outside and we'd play in the dirt and pick up worms and find salamanders. I'd pick up snakes and anything that was really biological. I think that's how I started to love biology. Then I loved cooking with my mom. Cooking and baking was my first experience with chem- istry and biology on a real experimental level. I always say the kitchen was my first lab. My parents never told me that science wasn't for me. They sent me to science camp, they encouraged it and it really went from there. INTERVIEWED BY CHRIS JONES From Miss Virginia to Miss America, CAMILLE SCHREIER Talks Pageant, Science, and Life Yeah, Science! Yeah, Science!