By By MICHELE GERLACH – Publisher
Miss America 2005, Deidre Downs of Birmingham, will perform in a free concert at Jefferson Davis Community College this week.
The concert, presented by the Greater Brewton Area Council on the Arts and the Finlay Foundation, is set for 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. in Woodfin Patterson Auditorium.
She will be joined on stage by current Miss Alabama, Alexa Jones of Andalusia, and several runners-up in the Miss Alabama contest. The presentation will include song and dance.
Former Miss Alabama and Brewton native Catherine Crosby also will participate.
Miss America also will make appearances in area schools on Thursday.
Miss Downs is the third Miss Alabama to become Miss America.
The 25-year-old beauty has been accepted to the University of Alabama School of Medicine, and is a graduate of Samford University where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in history. Her career goal is to become a pediatrician.
Her platform is curing childhood cancer.
A visit to Camp Smile-a-Mile, an Alabama camp for children with cancer, sparked her interest in the issue that would become her platform. She later worked as a camp counselor, led the effort to establish an automotive license plate program to generate funding for cancer research, and founded &#8221Making Mircales,&#8221 a volunteer program that put high school students into the cancer unit.