Mrs. Pennsylvania United States Calls Salisbury Township Home

Since she was crowned Mrs. Pennsylvania United States in March, Kate Mack of Salisbury Township has been busy proving how beauty is more than a pretty face.

She helped raise more than $1,600 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation with the Wish Upon A Par Golf Tournament at the Center Valley Club in April.

On World Penguin Day, she promoted the Lehigh Valley Zoo’s animal welfare conservation effort by adopting a penguin.

She also spoke at an epilepsy awareness day, attended an electronic recycling event in Whitehall Township and cut the ribbon for the new SteelStacks Farmers Market in Bethlehem.

“There is a bit of truth to beauty queens wanting world peace,” says the petite 29-year-old Lehigh Valley native. “We want to make the world around us better.”

During her reign, Mack hopes to move others to action, too.

“If you move yourself to action, you drive other people to action, too,” she says.

A teacher of ninth and tenth grade English at Southern Lehigh High School, Mack trained in ballet, tap and jazz dance as a child. While getting her masters degree at Lehigh University, she danced professionally with the Lady Outlaws, the dance team for the Lehigh Valley Outlaws indoor football team.

Then she fell in love. Growing up in Center Valley, she’d known James Mack since middle school. They attended Southern Lehigh High School together, but traveled different paths. After graduation in 2000, he went to work as a machinist and she went to Lehigh. But a few years later when they ran into each other at Crocodile Rock in Allentown, they danced the night away and started dating.

“We never played games, we’ve always been completely transparent, and that has been the key to our success,” says Kate Mack.

She resigned from the dance team after she and Jim got married in 2008 and she was teaching more.

“I was moving in a different direction,” she says, but she missed being in front of an audience. Mack had entered a few pageants when she was younger, and remembered there were competitions for married women, too, “so I got some sponsors and gave it a shot.”

In 2009, she was second runner up in the Mrs. Pennsylvania America contest. Last year, she tried for the Mrs. Pennsylvania United States contest, a similar kind of pageant honoring married women, and was named first runner-up.

This year in Pittsburgh, judged on her appearance in swimsuit and evening gown, and her answers to the judges’ questions in a rapid-fire interview, Kate Mack won the 2011 Mrs. Pennsylvania United States crown.

How does Jim Mack feel about being married to a title-holder? “It's an honor and a privilege to be married to the most beautiful woman in Pennsylvania," says Jim Mack.

“When we realized that I won, Jim was perhaps even happier than I was,” says Kate Mack, “and he’s been very supportive ever since. He attends appearances whenever he can, and he’ll speak for me if I’m tied up with somebody else. The competition is for married women, but it’s a team endeavor to be a married couple.”

Kate Mack’s mother is Judith Schartel of Allentown. “My father left when I was six months old,” says Mack. “It’s been my mom and my aunt and my grandmother and me since I was a baby.”  

She stays in touch with her ex-step-father, Thomas Bisbing of Easton. “He’s been like a father to me,” she says.

Before teaching at Southern Lehigh, Mack’s first job was at William Allen High School in Allentown teaching 11th and 12th grade English. She then taught language arts at Broughal Middle School in Bethlehem before applying for a position at her alma mater.

Do her roles as teacher and Mrs. Pennsylvania overlap?

“I am there for my students so they can discover who they are and move forward in their hopes and dreams,” she says.

“That’s sort of what you do as a state title-holder--- hopefully inspire others to achieve things they never thought possible through your own good example, and your support, and that’s what we do as teachers, too.”

As part of her plan to inspire and move to action, Mack is organizing two upcoming events. A Take Back the Streets Block Party and Community Yard Sale June 11 in the 300 block of S. Fulton Street, Allentown, will help promote auto theft prevention awareness. On July 8, a Worthwhile Style Fashion Show at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem will benefit Valley Youth House. Mack will be among the models wearing the designs of Pamela Ptak, a Project Runway contestant now fashion instructor at the Baum School of Art in Allentown.

And she’s preparing for the national Mrs. United States competition July 31-Aug. 5 in Las Vegas. “Eating healthy and exercising is huge,” says Mack. “I try to avoid processed food and I’m actually a lifetime member of Weight Watchers. I do Pilates to stay toned. One of the hardest things is keeping your health and fitness level up there when you have so many things going on,” she says.