When asked to run for Mrs. North Dakota; I found myself saying, No, I can't.  Im not polished the way I was told these women would be.  I tried many times to talk myself out of it.  I also had sources coming at me, making fun of me. She has no chance.  Shell be laughed off of the stage.  She will financially break her husband.  It's nothing but a money and self-glorification event, why would you want to do this.  God would NOT use a pageant to speak to you.

I had all the reasons to not run, but God spoke to me through so many things.  He threw David and Goliath at me.  The soldiers were polished.  They had all they needed in man's sight.  They had proper training as a soldier, proper equipment, grown men with manly wisdom. prepared.  What could a little boy do who had none of these, except The Lord on his side?  Then there was Moses who felt inadequate to speak, and he tried as well not to answer to his calling.  He made a difference in all of our lives.

I did not return with a crown, but I did return with a new way of looking at things.  God did not place upon my heart that I was to win, but He did place upon my heart to run.  He gave me the speech.  He even made programs available to me in little Bowdon ND,  from college universities,  on studies raising children.  He brought back to my memory an event that had taken place in my life, 8 years prior, when I had gone out on a limb singing a song that I felt God wanted me to write and was now testing me to sing publicly.  I performed this song at a gospel event in Tucson, Arizona, and a tourist somehow found her way into our festival.  She approached the head of the organization rebelling that the woman on stage, me, had no right to sing such a song.  It was an antiabortion song that I had never planned on writing, yet one morning I found myself looking at four lines on paper, that to this day, I do not remember writing.  Once those words were on paper; I knew what I was to do with them.

The day I sang this song, I felt God had let me down.  He let this event happen to me.  He disserted me, or so I felt, but I had 3 young woman back stage picking up the pieces.  One of these women said, Prairie Rose you always make a stand.  I disagreed.  Again she said, But you do.  I told her I had never made a stand.  Then she preceded to say, Your songs, Little Cowboy, Grandpas Eyes, they all stand for family values.

Here I was 8 years later, with those words ringing in my head.  I now saw a part of jigsaw puzzle falling into place, of my life.  When I wrote that song, Silently She Cries, 10 years ago, God then.had his purpose.  I needed to have all that happened to me, to give me one thought that ran through my head when I was asked to run for this pageant, FAMILY VALUES.

See for yourself as you read the following speech.  Whose words are these?  I am not a professor; I am a mother/wife/singer-songwriter and a hairdresser.  I was one thing that God needed, an obedient servant.  To become  His voice, His hands, and to do His will.

I am only one, but still I am one.  I can not do everything, but still I can do something, and because I can not do everything, I refuse to not do the something that I can.*

When I look around, I see a hurting world.  I see the value of life and family, no longer of value.  Black and white is no longer true today.  We have become a people who seem to focus so much on our intellect, that somewhere along the way; we've lost the heart of it.

Young children are like wet cement.  By our example. we set their mold.  When we look into a mirror, the reflection we see is what we are creating in our children.  We can't allow anything into our lives that we do not want reproduced in theirs.  So we need to do what is right even if it isn't always popular.  We need to train up our children the way we want them to be raised and not let the negative ways of the world, be their strongest influence.

I was once told a child will not care what we know, until they know that we care.  We need to let our children of this world know that we DO care.

I go by the stage name; "Prairie Rose" and my three young children are known as my "Home Grown Sidekicks."  We are a musical family with a message of "Family Values."  If chosen Mrs. North Dakota, my platform, "Train Up Your Children" would be a key to open closed doors, with music that touches the heart.

It's time we stand up, even if it means standing out!  It's time that we......

Train up our children in the way they should go.

Show them the lessons of the heart.

Teach them the truth that they most need to

to know, and when they are old they wont

depart.

When they are old, they will have character, integrity, and good moral values.  Something they will be proud of, something we can be proud of, something they can pass on down to their children, and to our grandchildren.  I am only one, but still I am one.  I can make a difference, and together we can make that difference.

My introduction: many people measure Wealth so differently.  I place it's value right here, (placed hand on my heart) because of the love of a husband and three young children that I love dearly, and a little farm nestled outside of Bowdon. that I treasure.....I feel like I've won the lottery!!  Besides being a wife and a mother. I am also a singer/songwriter and a self employed hairstylist, and I'm proud to carry the name, "Cathy Unterseher."

(My speech and introduction came to me late hours of the night.  I would find myself crawling out of bed and jotting down words that I felt placed upon my heart.  *Part of a song that I sung.)

*Edward Everett Hale