Indian Trail teacher to compete in Miss Illinois contest

Indian Trail Middle School sixth grade teacher La'Shaun Stallings-Hodge will compete in the 2007 Miss Illinois USA Pageant from November 17-19, 2006, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in downtown Chicago. A win sends the second-year teacher to the Miss USA Pageant, which is slated for April and will air on NBC.

Stallings-Hodge is in her second year teaching language arts and social studies at Indian Trail, which is one of six middle schools in Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202. She also completed two years of student teaching in the district before graduating from the University of St. Francis in 2005. In addition to her duties in the classroom, she is one of the school's Drama Club sponsors.

Stallings-Hodge is a "State Finalist" for November's Miss Illinois USA Pageant, and reached that point after being selected from hundreds of applications. She was named "Miss Joliet" in 2003 while she was a student at St. Francis.

As her big weekend approaches, Stallings-Hodge has already accumulated more than half of the necessary sponsorship funds, but is still in need of sponsorship assistance. Those funds will help cover costs associated with the pageant weekend, including hotel accommodations, meals and production costs, among other things. Her top sponsors will be recognized in the event program.

For more information, or to sponsor her for the Miss Illinois USA pageant, contact La'Shaun Stallings-Hodge at (815) 436-6128.