Miss Mississippi Emmie Perkins brought her “Music is Medicine” road show to Tallahatchie County Tuesday morning, visiting with pre-K students in the Charleston and Glendora areas.
Perkins, of Hattiesburg, is just a month removed from competing in the Miss America pageant, where she was the first Miss Mississippi to win the Jean Bartel Social Impact Initiative Award — the overall honor for contestants’ social outreach endeavors.
The 21-year-old is on a tour across the state to take her message about the unifying and healing virtues of music to schools in all 82 counties.
“This is county number 20,” Perkins said Tuesday, while at ICS Head Start’s Eva Covington Head Start Center near Charleston, where she presented to nearly three-dozen children from Tallahatchie Early Learning Alliance (TELA) classrooms.
Earlier, she visited with TELA students at Charleston Elementary School and, later, with TELA pupils at the West Tallahatchie Head Start Center near Glendora.
Miss Mississippi Emmie Perkins reads and, at intervals, sings from the book, “Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes,” to a group of pre-K students at the Eva Covington Head Start Center near Charleston. (Photo by Clay McFerrin)
“It’s really exciting to be going all over the state of Mississippi,” said Perkins, a senior communication and public relations major, with a minor in music, at Mississippi State University, where she won the title of Miss MSU.
Through her “Music is Medicine” outreach initiative, Perkins is concentrating on enriching the lives of others through the power of music.
“I take Music is Medicine to hospitals, nursing homes and school systems, but my main focus with this school tour is doing Music is Medicine in each of the school systems in every county in the state,” Perkins said. “That’s the majority of what I’m doing as Miss Mississippi now that I’ve returned from Miss America.”
She explained that she works in concert with music and education professionals.
“I work closely with a group called Musicians On Call out of Nashville and with the Department of Education to ensure that I’m getting the correct message across,” Perkins said. “I’m not a certified music therapist; I’m just somebody promoting the fact that music is beneficial to everyday life and makes people’s quality of life better.”
During her current school tour, she has two separate programs depending upon the age of the students.
“For my younger kids, we do a lot of literature and music combined to teach them that music can be used in the classroom to make learning fun,” Perkins noted. “We also do exercises with movement and maracas, because it’s proven that it is very beneficial to move and get involved in music when they are in the middle of their school day as a little break and a way to stay engaged.”
She starts by reading “Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes.”
“I sing throughout the book,” Perkins said. “Then we do ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams, from the movie ‘Despicable Me,’ with maracas, music and movement.”
Miss Mississippi Emmie Perkins has pre-K students at the Eva Covington Head Start Center near Charleston shake maracas while going low and dancing to the Pharrell Williams song, “Happy.” (Photo by Clay McFerrin)
When she visits schools with older children, she said she promotes a “social emotional learning” curriculum.
“We check in on how music can make us feel and how we can use music as a tool to make us happy and to increase the quality of our lives.”
Another goal of her tour is to impress upon the children she meets, that no matter their circumstances, no matter where they come from, it’s possible to dream big,” said Perkins. “Our next Miss Mississippi or Miss America could be sitting in one of these classrooms.”
She said she is really enjoying the school tour.
“I’ve got a lot of schools to go, so I will be driving a lot on the road and I would appreciate any prayers and thoughts as I head across the state,” Perkins noted. “The people of the state of Mississippi make everything worth it. It’s been a joy to meet them, to learn about them, and to be greeted by them with the best hospitality in the world each time I visit a new county. So, thank you for that.”
