Some days, it can’t get less glamorous than a 12-hour shift in a critical care unit. If you work there, you know that sometimes patient care is not pretty and some days smiles are hard to come by, especially when caring for the sickest of the sick. Just ask Kaylee Brooke McCollum and Landry Payne. Both are nurses in the Critical Care Unit at Baptist Memorial Hospital – Golden Triangle. And, both will tell you quickly that they absolutely love their job.
McCollum or ‘KB’, as she likes to be called, started working at Baptist Golden Triangle in July 2022 after receiving her associate degree in nursing from MUW in May. Payne is currently an Intern I in the CCU and will graduate from Mississippi University for Women in May with her associate degree in nursing. She will then work fulltime as an Intern II until she passes her nursing boards. Both say they plan to pursue a bachelor’s degree in nursing while they are working.
Watching both in their blue scrubs, tending to patients in the hospital’s busy 18-bed critical care unit, it is hard to imagine that each of them have another aspect of their life that they are just as passionate about – a place that is just about as far from the sights and sounds of the hospital as one can get – the pageant stage.
Both began participating in pageants in high school and over the years have placed in state and for McCollum, even national level competition when she placed third in the Miss Teen USA pageant in Reno, Nevada in 2019. Payne was the overall fitness winner in the Mississippi’s Distinguished Young Woman Pageant in 2018 and she placed 4th and was a speech winner Mississippi’s Miss Hospitality Pageant in 2021. Both say pageants have given them a voice to advocate for a social issue that they feel strongly about and that allows them to make a difference far outside the walls of the hospital.
For McCollum of Amory, it was a friend’s suicide the week before she was to compete in the Miss Outstanding Teen Mississippi Pageant in Vicksburg in 2016 and the urging from one of the interview judges in that pageant that lead her to change her ‘platform’ from hunger to ‘#YouMatter’ which focuses on suicide prevention.
She has created an online community on Facebook where she posts Bible verses, inspirational quotes and stories to encourage those who might be considering suicide. “I had one lady tell me that I saved her life through my Facebook page,” McCollum said. The two still keep in touch today.
She has also collaborated with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to advocate for suicide prevention. Through her work with ‘OPEN UP Mississippi’ a statewide youth mental health advocacy group, she visits schools to educate students about the warning signs of suicide and how to recognize if they have a friend who is struggling or displaying signs of depression.
She faults social media as one of the major factors that has led to an increase in teen suicide.
‘Social media has such a big impact. It is so much easier for them to compare themselves and feel like they don’t measure up,” McCollum said. “They don’t realize that (what they are seeing online) are the best highlights of a person’s life.”
In the Miss America pageant system, in which Payne is a part, each contestant is required to have a ‘community service initiative.’ Her compassion for those who are food insecure started when she volunteered at her hometown food pantry when in high school. That experience led her to sit down with her high school principal to discuss what she could do to help address the problem.
“I also had my own family members who had at one point needed food assistance,” she added. “I knew that if I went to the Miss Mississippi pageant I wanted that to be my focus,” she said.
This all led to the creation of her ‘#Food4Thought’ initiative.
She has partnered with the Mississippi Food Network and has completed fundraisers for the organization. For her last birthday, she raised money for a ‘Birthday Cake Kit Drive.’ Each kit included all of the ingredients needed to bake one birthday cake. That drive raised enough money for 150 birthday cake kits. They were distributed through weekend backpack food programs in schools across the state to children who had a birthday during the month.
“For families who are impoverished, parents are worried about the necessities. A birthday cake can be a luxury but it brings just a little bit of joy. A child might not remember a gift, but they will remember their birthday cake,” she said.
She is currently raising money to fund ‘Blessing Boxes,” - mini food pantries stocked with non-perishable food items that she hopes will be maintained by the community. She has currently raised enough money to create three of the food pantries that she plans to place in Macon, Meridian and Philadelphia. She has commitments from residents in those cities to maintain the boxes. The premise is ‘get what you need and leave what you can,’ she said.
“They will be accessible 24 hours a day. People can get what they need and go home. They do not have to talk to or interact with anyone. I hope people in the community will keep them stocked,” she said. Her goal is raise enough money to have ‘Blessing Boxes’ all over the state.
Both know that winning a state or even national pageant will allow them expanded opportunities to promote the social issue closest to their heart. But even if their pageant dreams fall short, both say they definitely plan to continue their advocacy work long after their pageant days are over.
McCollum said she plans to continue her online community suicide support group and continue to go into schools to speak to youth about suicide prevention.
Payne said she too plans to continue working with the Mississippi Food Network and volunteer at local food banks. “‘Food 4 Thought’ is something I love and am passionate about even outside the pageant world,’ she said.
And, in between pageants, they will gladly trade in the high heels for comfortable tennis shoes and the beaded gowns for nurses scrubs and will turn up their best pageant smiles for their patients as they return to their day jobs in the ‘unglamorous’ world of the critical care unit where they are winners every day.