Brooke Adair was a somewhat reluctant beauty queen.

The Westlake High School senior was approached over a year ago to be Miss Teen Austin International, and her application was chosen among many.

“At first, I was a little skeptical because I don’t consider myself to be a beauty queen or a pageant girl. I’d rather be out on the lake than preparing for a beauty pageant,” Adair, 18, said.

She saw the title and the competition to become Miss Teen Texas as an opportunity to raise awareness for a cause, that of abused and neglected children and raising their self-confidence. Adair was abused by her biological father at age 3 and has made it her mission to help abused, neglected, orphaned and abandoned children.

When she’s not dancing with the Hyline team, Adair is volunteering her time with the Center for Child Protection. She has taken mission trips to help orphans in Peru, mentored younger children at nearby schools and worked as a camp counselor at a camp for foster children.

She saw the Miss Teen Austin crown as a way to help her causes.

“I’ve always wanted a way to have a bigger voice,” she said. “I’ve always wanted an in and this has turned out to be my in.”

As she was preparing for the Miss Teen Texas pageant in San Antonio last year, Adair’s coach told her, “Brooke, a girl can walk into a room and have something really powerful to say and only half the people will listen to her. And if she walks into a room with a sash and crown and has the same important thing to say, everyone will listen to her.”

Adair earned the second runner-up title at the Miss Teen Texas pageant and won five out of seven special awards, including the community service and contestants’ choice award.

The pageant, while nerve wracking, was a great experience and taught her a lot about being in the spotlight and handling public attention – handy skills since she plans to pursue a degree in mass communications with an emphasis on sports broadcasting at Southern Methodist University in the fall.

Public speaking engagements, like a recent ribbon-cutting for a new Center for Child Protection facility in East Austin and impromptu speeches like one at a recent banquet, are no longer scary for her. She’s faced pageant judges.

Adair has suffered setbacks and hardship, she said. She’s open about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father and credits her mother’s steely resolve to get her out of that situation, the love and support of her family and her faith with carrying her beyond that experience to recovery.

The Center for Child Protection remains close to her heart because of her own experience as a survivor of abuse.

“The center here is unbelievable,” said Tama Adair-Williamson, her mother.

After her daughter was abused, she said, they had to make two trips to the emergency room, had multiple meetings with investigators and play therapy sessions, all in different locations.

“The Center for Child Protection has the exam rooms right on site, the interview rooms where the police come to the child, everything that any victim would need to get through and recover is right on site,” Adair-Williamson said.

She is now a board member for the Center for Child Protection. Mother and daughter have also volunteered with Court Appointed Special Advocates.

As Adair has experienced other setbacks in her life, she reflects on the road she has traveled, she said.

“I’m not saying it was an easy journey,” she said. “It was a long journey. To this day I still find myself struggling a little bit and you just have to reach back in your pocket and remember how far you’ve come.”

Last year, she was denied admission to SMU, but she didn’t let that stop her. She raised her GPA, re-took the SAT exam, sat for multiple interviews, made a digital resume and met with the president of the university. While on a mission trip to Peru in March, she got the e-mail that she had been accepted.

Her next goal is to become a sports broadcaster and use that position to be a voice for abused and neglected children. She also dreams of interviewing the Super Bowl and National Championship MVPs.

“I believe that everything happens for a reason, and if what I went through when I was younger was to be an influence or have an impact or be a voice for abused and neglected children now, I would do it all over again,” Adair said. “I feel like no one will truly understand any cause unless they have been through it.”