On Sunday, Oct. 30, at the Raddison Hotel in Manchester, Kolby Tracey’s future was changed forever. Tracey was competing in the Miss New Hampshire Teen USA Competition.

She had made it all way to the final five, and when asked how she was feeling before her on stage question, Tracey’s exuberant response "I’m on top of the world!," said it all. That feeling never left as 17-year-old Tracey was crowned the 2017 Miss New Hampshire Teen and surprisingly enough she was contestant number 17.

"I was feeling lucky about that number all weekend." Tracey said.

It was a long busy weekend filled with rehearsals, preliminary bathing suit and gown competitions on Saturday. Sunday continued with more rehearsals and the tough off stage interviews with the 5 judges, and the onstage final.

The nerves were high during the off stage judge interviews, "When they asked what kind of impact I could make, and what I really wanted to do with the title if I won." Her nerves calmed and the answer came easy, "I really think its important for young woman to be aware of ovarian cancer along with other cancers. Ovarian is a different kind of cancer because it usually is not detected until it has advanced to stage three. So it is really, really important for women to know the symptoms, know their family history and get checked out and be proactive."

The reason this answer came so easy is because it came from the heart. Kolby’s mother Janice Norwesh has been battling ovarian cancer for over a year now and Kolby has made it her mission to support the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition.

"I couldn’t be more proud of Kolby!" said Janice Norwesh. "She has always been such a confident and bright young lady, the way she carried and represented herself without any coaching or prior pageant experience was truly amazing! That is why I am really excited that Laurie Clemente and her team from Clemente Productions will be guiding, and helping her in this journey to compete at the National Pageant."

Norwesh said," it was so great to be able to share this special moment with all my family that traveled so far and to have so many friends there to cheer Kolby on! This is a moment we will all cherish forever! "

Kolby plans to pursue a career in communications, she is an honor student and takes her education very seriously. She is a senior at Bedford High School where she takes International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement classes. In her free time Kolby enjoys cooking, hiking, photography and especially writing.

Kolby will share this road to the National Pageant with Miss New Hampshire winner Sarah Mousseau, a 25-year old speech pathologist from Portsmouth, the 2017 Miss and Teen winners from Massachusetts and Maine who for all three states are represented by the wonderful Clemente Production Team.