Photo: Instagram/Patti Gomez-Michalkow
Patti Gomez-Michalkow, a 28-year-old Army National Guard veteran who was recently crowned Mrs. New York, now wants to take it a step further: she wants to be crowned Mrs. America.
According to the NY Post, Gomez-Michalkow, who was in the NYSANG’s 42nd Infantry Division as a human intelligence collector, will now try to use what she learned in the military and take it to the pageant stage. Here’s what she had to say:
“One of the things that was always imparted to me in the military was ‘Right place. Right time. Right uniform. So that’s the mentality I take into everything: Where do I have to be, what do I have to bring, and what do I have to do?”
There’s no talent portion of the competition since we’re a Mrs. category, but we did talk about special talents. Mine is shooting 300-meter targets.”
NY Post
Her decision to join the National Guard was spurred by a powerful childhood memory of 9/11, when she was a 12-year-old starting her first day at a new school. Her father had just picked her up when “All you could see was black smoke in the distance. Everything was a bit eerie. I guess maybe I was freaking out a little bit, because a National Guard soldier came up to me and said, ‘Hey, it’s gonna be OK.’”
“For some reason, that really stuck with me,” she said. “I really do believe that had an impact on my decision to enlist, about a decade later.”
While her contract with the Guard ran out a few days before she won Mrs. New York, Gomez-Michalkow still works her butt off as a senior marketing manager for M&D Financial, and she also regularly volunteers with a number of veterans charities.
Check her out, too: Ex-Soldier Kindly Myers Is Extremely Easy On The Eyes
Gomez-Michalkow will be going for the title of Mrs. America in Las Vegas this August, so make sure you keep an eye out for that. Until then you can give her Instagram a look. You won’t regret it.
