Pretty is as pretty does

I didn’t fully understand the following words as a child. But I sometimes heard my mother say, “Benny, always remember … pretty is as pretty does.”

Of all the physically “pretty people” I have laid eyes on in my life … if I were allowed to choose one person who best exemplified the maxim, “pretty is as pretty does”, I would have to think long and hard to find one better than Anna Grace Parlapiano.

Anna Grace has won numerous beauty pagaents over the last few years. She has been Miss Greene County. She has been Miss Tennessee Teen. Just this past November, she competed and won the title of Miss All American, a national pageant in Columbus GA.

Currently Anna Grace is serving as Miss Tennessee Collegiate America and will compete at their national pageant in June for the title of Miss Collegiate America.

These days, beauty pageant winners don’t just get honored for their good looks. This young lady has been awarded a total of $17,000 in scholarships for winning these various pageants … money which she has put directly toward her education at ETSU.

But I want to tell you more about the “good” that this young lady does, as a direct result of winning these various beauty pageants.

Anna Grace told me, “One of my favorite things I like to do is visit veterans at the VA Hospital in Johnson City."

Anna Grace has also volunteered to visit many local schools, reading to children.

(I should also note here that she does many of her good deeds “completely on her own accord”, and not as a “must do” for her winning beauty pageants.)

Anna Grace is currently working as a pediatric medical assistant at an urgent care in Johnson City, all while carrying a full load of advanced college classes. She will graduate from ETSU in December of this year with a Health Sciences degree, before applying for PA (Physician’s Assistant) School.

I have been privileged to personally observe some of Anna Grace’s good deeds “in action” firsthand.

She has served as a “nanny” to two of my own grandchildren (which is precisely how I came to know this wonderfully good young lady in the first place). Anna Grace has been deeply involved in the education and care of Lenna Kate Talley and James Benjamin Talley, both of whom are pictured with her below.

To directly quote Anna Grace, her experience with them “has been a dream come true and taught me a lot of things that I will use as a Physician’s Assistant and mom one day!”

I have no doubt what a wonderfully caring Pediatric Physician’s Assistant that Anna Grace will someday be.

And if she is ever blessed to be a mother, I also have no doubt Anna Grace Parlapiano will teach her own children (not by mere words - but directly by her own actions, as she does now) that “pretty is as pretty does.”