Shilah Precious Phillips is an American entertainer,

beauty pageant A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the Physical attractiveness, physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of Per ...

contestant, and the 2006 winner of the

Miss Texas The Miss Texas competition was founded in 1937 as a scholarship contest for young women. The winner represents Texas in the Miss America pageant; three winners have gone on to be crowned Miss America (but none since 1975). To become Miss Texas ...

title. She is the first African American winner of the crown in its 75-year history. She was also First Runner Up in the

Miss America 2007 Miss America 2007, the 80th Miss America pageant, was held on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada on Monday, January 29, 2007, making it the first time that the pageant was held on a weekday, rather than the traditional Saturday since 1927's ...

pageant.

Early life

Phillips grew up in Denver, where she attended a performing arts school from sixth to twelfth grade. She studied voice at

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

before dropping out and moving to California to try to become a singer, making demo records and auditioning for

American Idol (Season 3) The third season of ''American Idol'' premiered on Monday, January 19, 2004, and continued until May 26, 2004. The third season was won by Fantasia Barrino, who defeated Diana DeGarmo by an approximate margin of 2% (1.3 million votes); the vote to ...

. She returned to Texas, studying vocal music at

Collin County Community College Collin College is a public community college district in Texas. Founded in 1985, the district has grown as the county has grown from around 5,000 students in 1986 to more than 58,000 credit and noncredit students. Formerly known as the Coll ...

Miss America runner up

Phillips entered the Miss

Frisco Frisco may refer to: Places in the United States *Frisco, Alabama, an unincorporated community *San Francisco, California, as a nickname * Frisco, Colorado, a home rule municipality **Frisco Historic Park – see Frisco Schoolhouse * Frisco, Idaho ...

2006 contest after friends warned her that at 24 she was getting close to beauty pageants' cutoff age. She won the title on October 30, 2005, also winning its talent portion and swimsuit contest. On 8 July 8, 2006, at age 24 years, Phillips won the

2006 title, becoming the first African-American to hold the Miss Texas title in the 75-year history of the contest. This was the first time Phillips took part in the Miss Texas pageant. She is only the second woman in the history of the program to win the title on her first try. She competed as Miss Frisco, sponsored by the Miss Plano Frisco Scholarship Organization.Miss Plano Frisco Scholarship Organization
Between the Miss Texas pageant and the Miss America pageant, Phillips took part in an MTV reality show called ''Pageant School: Becoming Miss America''. According to ''Slate'', "The centerpiece of this inaugural Pageant School was Miss Texas. She’s tall, bright, and powerfully glamorous, with that intimidating Lone Star star quality. Her tears welled up sincerely when she talked about how proud she was to be 'the first African-American Miss Texas.'" Phillips competed in the

pageant on January 29, 2007. Awards in several categories were based on votes from viewers. Phillips took first place in the viewer voting contest for talent. As one of the final five contestants, Phillips performed live near the end of the evening, singing

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "Honorific nicknames in popular music, The Voice", she is Whitney Houston albums discography, one of the bestselling music artists ...

's hit "I Believe in You and Me." According to the

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Ta ...

, "Some of the loudest applause for a surviving finalist was for 24-year-old Shilah Phillips." Phillips was first runner-up to Miss Oklahoma ( Lauren Paige Nelson), who was crowned as Miss America 2007.

References

1981 births Living people Miss America 2007 delegates People from Texas Howard University alumni Miss America Preliminary Talent winners {{Texas-bio-stub