On December 18, 2016 tribal member Baylee Ogle was crowned Miss Oklahoma Teen USA 2017 at the Grand Casino Hotel Resort. Ogle topped 46 competitors from across the state and will go on to compete at the national Miss Teen USA 2017 in the summer.
Ogle is a freshman at the University of Oklahoma and is a sorority member of Alpha Chi Omega. Additionally she serves as a member of the university’s Disability Inclusion and Awareness Group, which she attributes to her passion for helping others. She enjoys volunteering at Make Promises Happen, a camp for individuals with special needs, as well as the charitable movement Warriors for Ross and other volunteer organizations in her communities.
During Baylee’s year as Miss Oklahoma Teen USA, she plans to bring awareness to disability accessibility and the daily struggles faced by the disabled and their families. Her late father, Eddie Ogle, battled ALS – or Lou Gehrig’s Disease – until his death in January 2016. She and her family experienced firsthand the trials and tribulations of disease and disability such as not being able to sit together as a family at sporting events, movies or travel when hotels, restrooms and restaurants claimed to be handicap accessible when they truly were not.
Ogle assisted her mother in helping feed, bathe, change and lift her 45-year-old father and military veteran in and out of bed. Because of these experiences, she said she has become extremely passionate about teaching others to have compassion for the disabled. She hopes to bring light to the situation through a program she developed called “Where There’s a Wheel, There’s a Way.”
To follow more about Ogle’s year as Miss Oklahoma Teen USA you can follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MissOklahomaTeenUSA or on Instagram and Twitter: @MissOkTeenUSA.