THE COURAGE TO COMPETE

An inspiring memoir about a girl with Cerebral palsy defying the odds and winning Miss Iowa USA. Abbey Curran has started her own pageant for girls with challenges, and in this book she tells her story.

Growing up on a hog farm in Illinois, Abbey overcame the painful and embarrassing leg braces she was required to wear in her early years, as well as the stares and ignorant, often insulting comments of her classmates. While still a teenager, she competed in local pageants and felt the power and sense of accomplishment they gave her. As she fulfilled her dream of competing in the Miss Iowa pageant, and later in Miss USA, she helped other disabled girls live their own dreams by starting Miss You Can Do It, a national non-profit pageant for girls and women with special needs and challenges.

In this remarkable memoir, Abbey tells a story of fighting for what she wants, following her dreams, and finding in herself the courage to compete, even as she continues to inspire the same spirit in others.

Abbey Curran, born with Cerebral palsy, made history as the first person with a disability to compete in major beauty pageant when she was crowned Miss Iowa USA in 2008 and competed in the Miss USA pageant. While still in high school, she founded The Miss You Can Do It Pageant, for young women with disabilities ranging in age from five to twenty-five, and designed to illustrate Abbey’s core belief that you can do anything if you are willing to try.

The pageant became the subject of an HBO documentary titled Miss You Can Do It, and Abbey has appeared on CBS’s The Early Show, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Access Hollywood, CNN Headline News, and Fox and Friends. Abbey graduated from Saint Ambrose University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Communications. Always seeking ways to be of help to others, she is currently in nursing school.