Baptist nurse uses pageant experience to highlight hunger in community

COLUMBUS — 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  Landry Payne. She is a nurse in the Critical Care Unit at Baptist Memorial Hospital – Golden Triangle. 

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. She said she plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in nursing while  working.

Watching Payne in her blue scrubs, tending to patients in the hospital’s busy 18-bed critical care unit, it is hard to imagine she has another aspect of her 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.

Payne began participating in pageants in high school and over the years have placed in state 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. She said pageants have given her a voice to advocate for a social issue that she feels strongly about and that allows her to make a difference far outside the walls of the hospital.

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.

Payne knows that winning a state or even national pageant will allow her expanded opportunities to promote the social issue closest to their heart. But even if her pageant dreams fall short, she says she definitely plan to continue their advocacy work long after their pageant days are over.

Payne said she 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. 

Payne, will be competing in the Miss Mississippi America pageant in Vicksburg June 7-10. Baptist Golden Triangle wishes her much success!