Miss Virginia brings her positive message to McIntosh, Yates elementary schools
Published October 23, 2026
Miss Virginia Maddie Marchant visited McIntosh Elementary School and Yates Elementary School on October 23 as part of her Miss Virginia School Tour.
She gave presentations to groups of students across all grade levels, talking with them about the importance of healthy habits and making positive choices as well as her platform of how to be kind to people with disabilities.
Marchant is deaf in one ear, wears a hearing aid, and has celiac disease, which makes her unable to eat any food containing gluten.
"Disability is an illness or a sickness or maybe a difference that makes someone's life a little bit different from ours," Marchant said.
Marchant is from Lebanon, Virginia, and was Miss Lynchburg when she won the Miss Virginia pageant. She is majoring in media and communications with a minor in political science at East Tennessee State University and plans to become a news anchor.
Marchant will speak at more than 80 Virginia schools during the tour that's part of her year-long reign.
She described how her hearing loss in childhood resulted in her wearing a hearing aid to school in first grade and she was bullied by other children, she told the students. Marchant now uses that experience to bring awareness about the need for compassion for and acceptance of anyone who may be different.
She gave tips on ways to be kind to those with disabilities and diseases, pointing out that, like both of her conditions, those things can be invisible.
"You would never it know from the outside that I have these disabilities," Marchant said. "But you know what? You didn't know I was disabled when I came in and you were so nice to me. You were so kind. So why would we treat anyone else with a visible disability any differently than you treated me when I walked in?"
