Ruston’s Shultz makes top 8 at Distinguished Young Women finals

In a small town in north Louisiana there lived a distinguished young woman.

Ruston’s Rosie Shultz represented all of Louisiana this past weekend as she competed in the 2023 Distinguished Young Women National Finals, finishing as a top-8 finalist out of 50 contestants from across the nation.

Formerly America’s Junior Miss, Distinguished Young Women is the oldest and largest national scholarship program for high school girls.

Shultz, 18, headed to Mobile, Alabama as the Distinguished Young Woman of Louisiana to compete in the scholarship competition against representatives from every state. Con-testants were judged in five categories: scholastics, interview, talent, self-expression and fitness.

Shultz advanced through the preliminary rounds and was chosen as one of the eight finalists to compete on Saturday. While she didn’t end up wearing the national Distinguished Young Woman crown (metaphorically — they use medallions), she earned a total of $8,500 in college scholarships.

“I feel like I kind of walked into it blind — I didn’t know what to expect,” Shultz said. “But it was nice to see all my hard work pay off.”

A fresh graduate of the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts ( LSMSA), where she was Student of the Year this year, Shultz is a longtime Ruston Community Theatre participant, a former Scripps National Spelling Bee speller, and a former Middle School Student of the Year in the Lincoln Parish school system.

Unlike competitors from many other states, nationals was Shultz’s first in-person exposure to a Distinguished Young Women event because Louisiana’s state competition is all virtual.

In fact, her first encounter with the organization was more or less happenstance.

“I actually found out about it from an advertisement on Instagram,” she said. “I was just scrolling one day and it said ‘$1 billion in scholarships,’ and I totally thought it was a scam.”

But after talking to friends and connections from other states who had competed, and hearing only good things about the organization, Shultz applied to the state competition.

After winning the state Distinguished Young Woman title, Shultz headed to Mobile for a week of rehearsal, sightseeing, community service, press appearances and more leading up to the start of competition.

Of the five categories, three are performed live. The scholastics portion is judged simply based on competitors’ high school transcripts and test scores, and the interview is conducted with judges beforehand.

The talent portion is a 90-second performance of any kind. Shultz chose a classical German opera piece that she picked up while attending LSMSA’s vocal performance track of the artist-intraining program. It was the only foreign language performance of the competition.

“I credit (LSMSA) a lot for the talent portion,” she said.

Then there’s a 10-minute fitness routine involving high-intensity interval training, part of which is performed in a group and part of which is solo.

Self-expression is where Shultz perhaps shined the most, as she was named a top-5 finisher out of all 50 contestants in that category, earning a $1,000 scholarship in the process.

In the preliminaries, the young women were given their speech topics for self-expression two hours in advance. Shultz was asked what act of community service has been most impactful for her.

“My favorite part I’ve played with Ruston Community Theatre was when I got to be Elsa (from Disney’s Frozen) last summer,” she said. “I talked about getting to be Elsa at the Peach Festival in one of my self-expression answers — getting to meet kids in the community.”

She said her experience in theater, both with the RCT and at her school, helped equip her to do well speaking on stage at the competition.

“A lot of it is how animated of a speaker you are, how precisely you enunciate, a lot of the skills you learn in theater,” Shultz said. “So that helped prepare me for the public speaking. I was very comfortable on stage.”

In the finals, the eight remaining contestants were given their selfexpression topics live and had to immediately give their speeches.

Shultz’s prompt dealt with the privatization of space exploration. As an avid Star Trek fan, she knew she could get the audience on her side with a quick “Space: the final frontier” reference out the gate before getting into the details of the topic.

Throughout the fast- paced whirlwind of all the rounds and portions of competition, Rosie’s mother, Sylvia Shultz, admitted her emotions had a tough time keeping up at some points.

“I was not breathing,” she said. “But I do know that whatever Rosie puts her heart and mind to, she does it 100% and above. She’s always been very hard-working, and I’ve seen it pay off. We’re truly proud.”

All in all, Shultz won a $5,000 scholarship for being named a finalist, $1,000 for the self-expression prize, $1,000 from the Louisiana organization for winning state, $1,000 from the AL.com Distinguished Diaries Award for journaling a day of the competition, and the $500 Bork Family Social Justice Award for an essay on her work in that field.

Shultz has a passion for political advocacy, having served as president of LSMSA’s Student Government Association and chairwoman of the Louisiana High School Democrats.

She will be attending Brown University to study political science and environmental science with the aim of going into environmental law.

“I’m passionate about climate change advocacy,” she said. “It’s a field where I feel my skills would be utilized well.”

Looking back on the Distinguished Young Woman competition, Shultz said she would definitely recommend it to any Louisiana student who may be considering it.

She emphasized that the process is completely fee-free, and even all the way up to nationals the only personal expense she had to pay was her outfits for competition.

“For the whole week and a half I was there (in Mobile), I was surrounded by incredibly smart and talented people, and very kind people,” she said. “I made so many really close friends and connections that will benefit me in my professional career, but also personal friendships.”

Shultz wanted to thank those who helped her prepare for the competition: her family, Deanna McCallum, Sarah Katherine Mc-Callum Cox, Marianna Easley, Steele Moegle, Lisa Benner and Jenna Carpenter.