By Clint Confehr
COLUMBIA, TN — A Mt. Pleasant woman studying to become a registered nurse has succeeded her sister as the Maury County Fair’s Fairest of the Fair, officials report.
Columbia State Community College student McKenzie English, 20, is already a certified nursing assistant at Life Care Center of Columbia, a rehabilitation facility and nursing home.
Maury County’s fair was during the Labor Day weekend.
McKenzie succeeds her 17-year-old sister, Graciee, the first African American to be Maury County’s Fairest of the Fair, according to Mandy McClaren, director of the county’s Fairest of the Fair. State competition outgrew the Music City Sheridan in Nashville. McKenzie competes in late January for the state crown at the Embassy Suites hotel in Murfreesboro.
She’s to appear in Columbia’s Christmas Parade.
In addition to such duties, school and CNA work, McKenzie says, “I have my own small business.” She makes stickers which are applied to shirts, back packs, “anything with fabric,” and for a friend she put a personalized “sticker on her motorcycle helmet.”
The English family lives “in the country part of Mt. Pleasant,” says McKenzie, a 2017 graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School. She’s studied nursing at Methodist College in Pulaski and subsequently transferred to CSCC in Columbia.
“I have a really big family with a couple of nurses and my aunt is an LPN,” McKenzie said. They endorse her career selection.; She hasn’t selected a specialty.
“I’m thinking pediatrics, but I’m not sure,” McKenzie said. She might go to medical school. Now, she’s studying basic subjects including English, math anatomy and biology.
Her work at Life Care Center on James Campbell Boulevard is on an as-needed basis. The rehabilitation facility and nursing home has about 112 residents.
Maury County’s Fairest of the Fair competition was Aug. 17 in CSCC’s Cherry Theater. The English sisters have been participating in pageants for about five years.
Their parents are Brad and Leslie English.
