With a dazzling crown and a growing online following, junior Franchesca Rodzdzialik is thriving, on stage and on screen. Just weeks after winning Miss South Texas Teen, she is back at school, balancing prep for the National American Miss pageant, social media influencing and volunteer work at a local hospital.
Rodzdzialik has gained millions of followers across all her social media platforms, having over 2 million followers on her shared YouTube channel, Francesca and Leah
. Across all of her social media platforms, she strives to promote positivity and happy, lighthearted content.
“As my social media presence got bigger, I realized it’s so important to have a positive impact online considering there’s so much negativity,” Rodzdzialik said.
This mindset led to her starting pageants. She wanted to spread that positivity to more people as she represented her area as a beauty queen. Rodzdzialik competed in her first ever pageant over the summer after preparing for months. She worked hard to find her purpose for doing pageants, build her platform and become pageant-ready by gaining confidence and putting herself out there.
“I started preparing months in advance because I knew that I wasn’t in the right headspace or mindset to compete in a pageant,” Rodzdzialik said. “I had no idea anything about it.”
Despite the brand new experience she was going through, she didn’t let her nerves get to her. With the help of her pageantry coach, she was able to get in the right headspace and walk the stage.
“I had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. It was scary, but it was so fulfilling too. You kind of just felt like that was your moment,” Rodzdzialik said.
As her first pageant, Rodzdzialik never expected she would place very high, however when the judges called her name for the South Texas pageant winner, she was shocked.
“When they called my name for South Texas, I genuinely felt my heart drop. The fact that I walked away with a title too was just unbelievable and I felt like all my work paid off,” Rodzdzialik said.
Despite winning Miss Texas, Rodzdzialik is not just a beauty queen. Throughout her pageant training and competing process, she also grew as a person. She became more confident, learned how to present herself and became the best version of herself.
“That work taught me how much it’s actually about knowing yourself, having a solid platform and having a good motivating factor,” Rodzdzialik said.
In November, Rodzdzialik is set to compete at the National American Miss pageant in Orlando. She has begun her prep work again to continue.
Aside from being a pageant queen, Rodzdzialik’s social media career is still thriving. Her large online following on her Instagram, Tiktok and Youtube resulted in her landing brand deals and invites to influencer events. Over the summer, Rodzdzialik was invited to an exclusive creator pop-up for trendy clothing brand: Pink Palm Puff. She flew out to Los Angeles to meet with other influencers who share an online presence.
“It was a great opportunity and you can make a lot of connections and stay present on social media that way,” Rodzdzialik said.
Along with Rodzdzialik’s passion for social media, she has found a love for helping others at a junior volunteer program at Memorial Hermann Hospital.
“I want to be a physician, so I was really looking for ways to get exposure to the medical field,” Rodzdzialik said.
Rodzdzialik worked two shifts a week, interacting with patients and getting a feel for what the job would entail. Throughout her internship, Rodzdzialik’s love for medicine grew, and she is already planning to go back next year.
“Making those connections with the doctors and nurses and the whole environment gave me so much more of a love for medicine than I already had,” Rodzdzialik said.
Rodzdzialik is also on the Cy Woods Tennis team along with being a Horizons student taking multiple Dual Credit classes. Managing all her classes, extracurriculars, volunteer work, and becoming Miss South Texas Teen, has proven difficult.
“I pushed myself and it only taught me more time management,” Rodzdzialik said. “It’s proven that I can do it, even if it’s hard.”
