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15/09/2017
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Mike Organ, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee Published 10:00 a.m. CT Sept. 15, 2017 | Updated 2:08 p.m. CT Sept. 15, 2017
Former Miss Tennessee Hayley Lewis, who went on to be a Miss America finalist, is trading in her crown for a microphone.
Lewis has accepted a position as a television sports anchor/reporter for Channel KEZI-9, the ABC affiliate in Eugene, Ore.
Lewis, 24, a Belmont graduate, said she used her beauty pageant experience to land her dream job.
"It's not like pageants were my life or my identity," said Lewis, the 2014 Miss Tennessee winner who finished sixth in the 2015 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N.J. "I enjoyed it, I loved it. It was a part of my past that has catapulted me into my career choices today and given me the encouragement and confidence to go after these things."
Lewis, a Kansas City, Mo., native, financed her college education through competing in pageants.
She gained valuable experience working in the Belmont sports information department, which helped lead to an internship in the sports department at WKRN-2.
She also worked for the OVC Digital Network, which streams Belmont's games, handling updates during timeouts along with post-game interviews with coaches and players.
After she graduated, Lewis became a personal assistant for Memphis Grizzlies veteran Brandan Wright, a former Brentwood Academy standout who still lives in Nashville in the off-season.
Lewis' background in pageants also helped her get that job. Wright's wife, Tucker Perry, also graduated from Belmont and was Miss Tennessee in 2010.
"When Brandan hired me he promised, 'You're going to be in a sports family, you're going to be in an environment learning how to work on the weekends,'" Lewis said. "So it was really good preparation. Brandan and Tucker also gave me flexibility to shadow people, hold outside gigs and do sports broadcasting on the side. It was a win-win situation."
Lewis' other experience locally came from broadcasting the TSSAA boys and girls state basketball championships along with former WKRN-2 anchor Dawn Davenport, who now works for the SEC Network and The Zone 104.5-FM.
"Dawn was a huge help because she let me really pick her brain on what it's like to have a female role in sports broadcasting," Lewis said. "Calling games with her was extremely helpful because she's a pro."
Lewis also shadowed The Zone's Midday180 crew and ESPN's Tom Hart, when he was in Nashville for college basketball broadcasts.
Lewis got her big break recently when she received a message from KEZI news director Matt Templeman.
"He asked, 'Would you ever consider moving to Oregon?'" Lewis said. "I checked it out, saw what I'd be covering — the (Oregon) Ducks, Oregon State and a lot more out there. After that (Templeman) sent me something along the lines of, 'What's it going to take to make you part of our team?' I was like, 'You want me? You actually want me?' It felt great and then I talked to him and the other people on the staff and knew immediately these are the kind of people I want to work with."
Lewis dates Evan Bradds, Belmont's all-time leading scorer and two-time OVC Player of the Year, who graduated last spring.
She said he encouraged her not to give up on her dream even after she applied for more than 100 TV jobs that didn't pan out.
"Evan has been very supportive throughout all of this," Lewis said.
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