KEIZER — The new America’s Junior Miss is a member of St. Edward Parish here who sings with enthusiasm for liturgy and takes sandwiches to homeless people living under Salem bridges.
Late last month in Mobile, Ala., Amy Kerr was chosen as winner in the national scholarship contest, which is open to female high-school seniors who will go to college.
Kerr, 18, won a total of $74,000 in college grants by taking part in the competition. She is bound next fall for Willamette University in Salem.
As an active member of the St. Edward youth group, Kerr recently went on a service trip to Mexico. In both that and the sandwich project, she discovered that ministry is more a relationship than a unilateral act.
Kerr also has helped lead the junior-high youth group at St. Edward’s.
Perhaps even more than service, sacred song fires her up.
“Music is one of my favorite things in life, and the feeling I get when I am praising God with the voice he has blessed me with is so amazing,” she says.
In Mobile, Kerr captured first place for talent by singing a piece from the opera La Boheme.
In her career at McNary High School, Kerr racked up singing awards, honors for German studies and all league-honors for soccer and softball. She posted a 3.9 grade-point average and also received a community service award from the City of Keizer.
She led the advanced jazz choir and played the lead in the school’s production of The Sound of Music.
Kerr is the first Oregon winner America’s Junior Miss, which began in 1957. She has already appeared on network morning shows and has a set of tours and appearances on the books. For a year, Kerr must spend weekends and one week a month in her very public role.
Her parents are Mike and Sandy Kerr. Mike Kerr is a member of the St. Edward’s pastoral council and the Archdiocese of Portland Pastoral Council.
“Faith is my life,” says Amy. “We are all put on this earth to know, love and serve the Lord — everything we do should just be an extension of that.”
Among people who fascinate Kerr are Laura Bush, Booker T. Washington, American soprano Renee Fleming and Napoleon Bonaparte. She admires Ella Fitzgerald and the University of Portland and Olympic soccer star Mia Hamm.
The Sound of Music and Finding Forrester rate as her favorite films. In books, she is moved by Great Expectations and Oregon-based Ricochet River.
When Kerr returned to Oregon from the competition, she was escorted to her Keizer home by a caravan that included two fire trucks and a police car. On one of the trucks was a massive poster of the teen.
Neighbors waved from their porches.
“Amy is a very talented, committed Catholic Christian young lady,” says Betty Buehre, RCIA director at St. Edward’s.
Stef Bafus, the parish’s youth minister, can hardly contain herself when discussing Kerr.
“Amy has been a gift to me,” Bafus says. “Her faith in Christ and love for the Church inspires me. She is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. As America’s Junior Miss she will no doubt share the beauty of the Catholic Church with America. I would say that she is one of the Church’s future leaders, but she is already a leader in the Church.”
An enthusiastic Catholic, Kerr says that a deep and mature habit of prayer are keys to living a good life.
“What the church could do to best lead people into their vocation is to counsel them and direct them into a prayer life and into discernment concerning how God is calling them to serve,” she says.
“That way more teens would hear their calling of life in the ministry. It’s so important to teach young people about the fact that God is calling them to a very specific vocation, and they need only listen and discern to see the perfect life He has planned for us.”