Hannah Roberts is one grateful young woman.

Roberts, 2015 Miss Mississippi and the current first alternate to Miss America, spoke to and played her violin for attendees at the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber luncheon at the Vicksburg Convention Center Wednesday.

It was Roberts’ first time back at the convention center since she won her title in June.

“This is surreal for me,” she said. “Time is quickly going by.”

Roberts, a summa cum laude graduate in biochemistry at the University of Southern Mississippi, was accepted to the University of Mississippi School of Medicine for the 2014-15 academic year, but deferred her admission for a year to participate in the Miss Mississippi pageant.

Little did she know that decision, and her subsequent title of Miss Mississippi and first runner-up to Miss America, would earn her enough scholarship dollars to pay for her entire medical school education.

“I will graduate from medical school without student debt,” Roberts said. “I’m going to have a humble and thankful Thanksgiving.”

She also earned her undergraduate degree at USM without student debt. Roberts earned scholarship dollars for her education at USM by “taking the ACT seven times and keeping up my GPA.”

Roberts competed in the Miss Mississippi pageant in 2013 after earning the title of Miss University of Southern Mississippi. She won the talent competition in that pageant, playing her classical violin, and was first runner up.

She did not compete in the pageant in 2014, instead concentrating on taking the Medical College Admissions Test and other exams necessary to be accepted into medical school.

However, after attending the Miss Mississippi pageant in 2014, she said she knew she had to compete again.

“I’m thankful that I waited that year to compete again,” she said. “I was older and wiser when Miss America came around.”

Even though she sat watching pageants on television as a child while eating popcorn and wearing a homemade sash made of ribbons, Roberts said she never envisioned competing in one.

“I wasn’t a child who said they were going to grow up to be Miss Mississippi. I was an awkward, ugly duckling child,” she said. “I decided to compete for Miss USM a week before the pageant. I had no gown, no heels, no earrings, but somehow, I won.”

For the next year, Roberts will continue her visits to schools, hospitals, military bases and the like, promoting her pageant platform — Pages of Love — which aims to give children greater access to books to read.

“I meet so many children who do not have books, and when we give them a book, they ask if they can take it home,” she said. “So many people take for granted the things we have. I’m thankful for my literacy and the education I have and for my parents, who raised me to love education.”