Deidre first realized her passion for working with children when she visited Camp Smile-a-Mile, a camp for children with cancer. She returned for a weeklong camp session as a counselor, an experience that motivated her to champion the cause of pediatric cancer as her platform issue when she began competing in the Miss Alabama Pageant.  

Continuing her volunteer work at The Children’s Hospital of Alabama, she started a high school volunteer program that enabled students to work one-on-one with cancer patients at Children’s Hospital. Realizing the importance of research funding in the fight against cancer, she created and designed a specialty license plate for the State of Alabama to raise funding for oncology research at Children’s Hospital. The plate is now available statewide and to date has raised over $95,000 for research.  

After winning the title of Miss America, Deidre took her advocacy to the national level, serving as the official spokesperson for CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation. Deidre has spoken to audiences around the country to raise awareness of pediatric cancer and has lobbied Congress for additional funds for pediatric oncology research.  

Deidre will complete her tenure as Miss America in January 2006 but will continue her advocacy for children, speaking and raising research dollars in the fight against cancer. Her passion for helping children leads her to medical school at the University of Alabama, where she will begin her studies in Fall 2006 to become a pediatrician.