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The one arm beauty Nicole Kelly [Photo: Nairaland]
A beauty queen who was born with one arm is using her title to raise awareness of disability and encourage youngsters to pursue their dreams.
Nicole Kelly beat off hundreds of rivals to be crowned Miss Iowa 2014.
And the 23-year-old is using her success to give talks in schools about how to overcome disability.
She was born without a left forearm, but the university graduate says she has never let it hold her back.
Before winning the pageant she worked on a Broadway play in New York.
"As I grew up I learned to counterbalance the initial stares I received from people with an outgoing personality that would not give in.
"This means that I tried everything, from baseball, to dance, to diving - there is nothing I would not try.
"I found my passion within a world where I was giving people permission to stare - the stage."
She has launched a campaign called The Power of One to encourage people to embrace their differences, and meets parents of children with disabilities.
"Meeting the parents of amputee and physically differently-abled children has been a shocking experience at times.
"I had assumed everyone else's parents would be like mine, but many are far more concerned about limiting their child's life to protect them from harm."
