Angela Boyce-Mathis took home the title of Ms. Ultimate All World Beauties US 2022 at the 21st annual National All World Beauties and Man of Distinction Pageant in Plano, Texas, in late June.
Prior to this win, Boyce-Mathis had never competed in a pageant before. The reason why she took the leap: her daughter and son.
Boyce-Mathis’ children have been competing in pageants since they were very young. Her daughter has been competing since she was 8 months old. When it came time for her daughter to retire from doing pageants, her daughter suggested that Boyce-Mathis should enter a pageant of her own.
“Why not?” Boyce-Mathis said. She took her 54-year-old age as a motivator to live by her mantra of, “living life in reverse.”
Boyce-Mathis and her daughter began doing research in making sure that Boyce-Mathis entered a pageant right for her.
The All World Beauties pageant is founded on three pillars – inner beauty, empowerment and service. These three pillars really spoke to her and all attributes of her community service with domestic violence victims and assisting the families of critically ill children.
Being a pageant mom for roughly 16 years, Boyce-Mathis knew about all the preparations she had to make in order to compete. Finding an evening gown, preparing headshots, deciding what her platform would be, and being prepared to answer questions at random. She was unaware of how different a pageant could be when you are the one on the stage.
“What I found out real quick is it’s different being a stage mom behind the scenes, than it was being on the stage,” said Boyce-Mathis.
The pageant consisted of competing in the following categories, for the following amount going toward competitors’ final scores: Interview competition for 50%, self-introduction/costume for 10%, high fashion wear for 10%, evening gown/formalwear competition for 25% and final question for 5%.
Representing California at this national competition was prevalent in her choice of costume for the self-introduction/costume portion of the pageant. Despite facing some pushback from others, she chose her costume to be, “fire.”
“I wanted to talk about it from the reverse of that (California always being on fire). California, the residents, we’re resilient,” said Boyce-Mathis. “It takes fire and pressure in order for those things (diamonds and such) to form and become beautiful.”
The controversy paid off and the costume, with the explanation, was well received.
For her final question, Boyce-Mathis was asked, “Tell us how you have handled failure in your life?”
“I don’t look at situations as failures,” said Boyce-Mathis. “I’m either going to accomplish what I set out to accomplish or I’m going to learn something, but there are no failure moments. There are some takeaways from every situation.”
In the end, Boyce-Mathis was chosen by the judges to receive the title of Ms. Ultimate All World Beauties US 2022. In addition, Boyce-Mathis received the following awards: Director’s choice, cover model, center fold winner, model of the year, portfolio winner, outstanding community service award and Miss Congeniality.
Out of all the awards she won, she says that the one that meant the most to her was being voted as Miss Congeniality by all of her fellow competitors.
“I cried,” said Boyce-Mathis.
At the end of the day, Boyce-Mathis just wanted to make sure she was always having a good time, win or no win. She successfully did just that.
With a crown on her head and a title to her name, Boyce-Mathis now sets her sights on continuing her community service and hoping that one day she will be seen as eligible to receive a lifetime award from All World Beauties.
“Using your crown as a platform to illuminate that empathy and that compassion for people who may be at a rough time in their lives,” said Boyce-Mathis. “Encouraging the goodness and random acts of kindness because at the end of the day, I always say, ‘Kindness is a language that even the blind can see.’”