MS ALASKA SENIOR AMERICA 2011,
JEAN WESTROM

Jean Westrom represented Alaska at the 2011 National Pageant held in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Jean is seventy eight years old, has been married for fifty years years, has eight children, seventeen grandchildren, and one great grandchild. She was born in L’Anse Michigan and is the eldest of eight children.

She began performing with her sisters at seven years old and after winning a large talent show when she was eleven she performed on a large stage in Chicago. When she was eighteen she performed at the Aquatennial in Minneapolis and also sang on a weekly television show in the 1950’s.

She married at 23, moved to California and had her first child at 25. Becoming a mother was a turning point in her life. She gave up her singing career and became a full time mother, and for the next forty years attended school and sporting event while pursuing her own liberal art degree at night. Her community volunteer work was backyard swim instructor, training as a life guard and assisting in the classroom. She also started making small investment in income properties and her husband retired early on those investments. Her love for performance never left her and a small part she played in Fiddler on the Roof when she was 45 begin a search for an opportunity to return to the stage.

Inspired by people like Stephen Hawkings who is searching for the theory of everything and Heather Whitestone the first deaf Miss America who became a role model for deaf children, Jean realized how they focused on what they had to give the world regardless of their life situation. That started her on her own journey to find her creativity that she could share with the world and the Ms. Senior America Pageant gave her that opportunity.

Her values are spiritual development, health, physical fitness and continuing education. She runs an hour a day and is enrolled at the university in an aging and sexuality course and belongs to an online study group directed by Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now.

Her attributes are her ability to be flexible with change courage during times of great challenge and her belief in commitment. With more free time and a variety of life experiences she sees aging as a time for great possibilities.

Her favorite sounds are the words mom and grandma and her inspiration comes from walking in the forest.

She believes the qualities she has to share with the Ms. Senior America Pageant is her physical fitness at seventy eight, her love for lifelong learning and her passion for performance and creativity in original poetry. With over fifty per cent of seniors having some sort of disability and inspired by Heather Whitestone the first deaf Ms. America who showed the world what real beauty was Jean never gave up on her dream of becoming Ms. Senior America. Believing Plato comment, that art is not imitation but imagination her original poem reflects her beliefs in health, physical fitness, creativity and sensuality women can enjoy regardless of their age.