Deveney Shea

Twenty-one years ago this week, just after her 18th birthday, Deveney Shea joined the Army on whim and began her two decades plus military journey from Midwest America to Virginia and currently the DC Metro region. Over those two decades of service, Deveney has taken on a variety of roles within the Department of Defense in both active duty and civilian/reserve status, but it was almost exactly 18 years after her enlistment that Deveney took a different kind of chance and found herself, unexpectedly, gracing the Kennedy Center stage as a contestant in the Miss DC for America pageant. On this episode of the pod, Deveney shares her story navigating military life, how she found pageantry and the power it provided to unleash her feminine side, the confidence boost competing has provided her personally and professionally, and how she is leveraging her Public Affairs experience within the Army and pageantry successes (crowned Miss Maryland 2019 and USOA Ms. Kansas 2020) to mentor young women and become the first ever Executive Director of the United States of America Pageant System's Teen, Ms., Miss, and Mrs. competitions for the DC, MD, and VA region.