VIDALIA — Ada Morgan had been waiting for her time on stage her whole life.

Morgan, who was recently named Miss Vidalia, said she had emulated the previous pageant winners since she was just 8 years old, when she served as a page for the Miss Vidalia Pageant.

“I always looked up to the girls,” she said. “You wait your whole life for it, and it felt like it only lasted 15 minutes.”

Getting ready for the pageant, however, took much longer, Morgan said.

“We began months ahead of time,” she said. “We learned the fitness dance, tried out dresses, found casual wear.”

Each year the pageant has a theme, and though contestants are not obligated to stick to the motif, Morgan said she embraced it.

“The theme was Peace, Love and Beauty,” she said. “I decided to dress ‘60s style with a sundress and the knee-high boots.”

But perhaps the most strenuous part of the process, she said, was the interview portion.

Morgan sat down to interview with three strangers who asked her a variety of questions — some silly, some serious.

“My big thing was being a leader, not a follower,” she said, “and finding inner beauty.”

Morgan said her drive to find inner self-worth comes from an accident she faced when she was a child.

When she was just 6 years old, a dog bit Morgan in the face, leaving her with four stitches near her left eye and five stitches in her lip.

“The first thing I told my mom was that I looked like Frankenstein,” Morgan said. “I had to explain it for years. I still do, sometimes.”

Morgan said she had to learn — with the help of her mother, Anna Morgan — to love herself as she was, and she wants to teach others to love themselves, too.

“It’s important to teach children that they can be themselves,” she said. “They don’t have to be what everybody else is.”

The Delta Charter School senior said teaching this lesson — among many others — will play a major role in her life.

“I see myself as an elementary teacher,” she said. “For a long time, everyone pushed me toward the medical field, but that’s not where I want to be. I found it — I found what I want to be.”

Morgan said she felt it was important for her to have passion for her career — especially as a school teacher.

After attending Louisiana Tech University — where her father, Gary Morgan, also graduated —  Morgan said she would love to come back to the parish and teach here — but not for long.

“The dream is of course to come back and teach at Delta Charter,” she said. “But, I’ve lived in Vidalia all my life. I want to see what else is out there.”