Whitehall's own Isabelle Musk chasing down Miss America's Teen dream

WHITEHALL — Whitehall High School grad Isabelle Musk is Miss Michigan’s Teen now in large part because, while nervously awaiting her on-stage question at the state show in June at the Frauenthal Performing Arts Center in Muskegon, she remembered the kids she’s taught dance to for years.
“I was delegate number 15, so I had to wait a little bit, and I’m sitting there waiting, sweating, and there was part of me that was just like, ‘Why do I do this again? This is nerve-wracking,’” Musk said with a smile. “I went out there and I trusted those instincts. All I thought about were those girls. After starting teaching in 2019, I have grown super close with them and they’re my pride and joy. I’m able to teach and mentor them and I feel like a big sister to them. They’re just lovely, and they’re my purpose. They’re why I do what I do, and I couldn’t do it without them.”
Musk won that title, and because of it she’ll be ringing in the year 2025 in Orlando, participating in the Miss America’s Teen competition from Dec. 31-Jan. 5.
While in Whitehall, Musk was a private and assistant dance instructor at Releve Dance Studio, and her mom Angela said she convinced the school’s boosters to contribute $1,000 annually to help children who needed help paying for classes. Musk’s effect on the kids she has taught is obvious; at a Nov. 23 send-off party for her at Releve, she was constantly being approached by young children she knows from the studio.
For many who participate in the Miss America’s Teen program, it starts early - it’s open to girls ages 13-18. Musk, though, had never competed in an event until February 2023, when she participated in the Miss Shoreline’s Teen show during her junior year at Whitehall. Looking for ways to earn scholarship money to attend the prestigious Boston Conservatory at Berklee dance school - she’s currently in her first semester there - Musk was encouraged to participate in the program by Cory Essebaggers. Essebaggers works with Musk’s mother Angela at Greenridge Realty, and her daughter, Stacy Shepherd, was Miss Michigan in 2001. Shepherd also previously taught dance classes at the Releve Dance Studio in which Musk was a student.
“She said, ‘Isabelle has that ‘it’ factor. I really think that she should try it, because there’s so much scholarship money,’” Angela Musk said of a conversation she had with Essebaggers.
It didn’t take long for Musk to display that ‘it’ factor. While she did not win Miss Shoreline’s Teen in that first pageant, she displayed enough skill to lead the state Miss America’s Teen director, Peggy Lotridge, to encourage Musk to compete in Miss Michigan’s Teen as an at-large candidate. There she performed well enough that Lotridge knew Musk could be special.
It’s vital for competitors at Miss America’s Teen to have a talent, and obviously as a student at one of America’s most exclusive dance schools, Musk has that. However, just as important to her success, Lotridge said, is her outgoing and warm personality.
“Her talent is very good,” Lotridge said. “She’s a very highly skilled dancer, and that’s really noticeable. Also her personality...She really enjoys what she does, and she loves working with kids. That’s always a plus. Just her whole attitude. She’s got a great attitude. She wants to excel.”
That personality manifests itself most noticeably in Musk’s own work teaching dance, where she’s had long-lasting effects on the students she’s taught. Angela Musk said a former student of Isabelle’s recently recalled advice she’d received from Isabelle when auditioning for the Vikings’ middle school competitive cheer team.
“She was a little nervous because she didn’t have a lot of the tumbling skills,” Angela said. “She told me she went to the audition and she thought about Isabelle telling her to go on the stage and look out there and pretend you’re looking right at somebody that you love, like your mom or your dad, and just dance for them. She did it, and she made the team in sixth grade, with maybe not all the skills everybody has, but she’s got that great stage presence. She channeled Isabelle.”
Part of participating in the Miss America program is outlining and executing a service initiative, and it comes as no surprise that Musk’s, inspired by her time teaching kids in Whitehall, revolves around the mental and therapeutic benefits of movement. She calls it “Leaping into Wholeness,” and by all accounts her focus on it dates to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which time she found keeping herself moving aided her mental health during a stressful time. She now wants to bring those benefits to others.
“I think having that driving her, the Miss Michigan program, it drove that to become what is now almost a nonprofit where she can have tax-deductible donations,” Angela Musk said. “It’s huge, and I don’t think that it will ever stop. She says, ‘Mom, long after this is over, I feel passionate about raising money to help kids that can’t do these things.’”

Musk is a people person by nature - “I could talk to you for three hours,” she smiles - but her work with the Miss America’s Teen program has really sharpened her public speaking skills and her ability to speak in a structured setting. Interviews are, of course, a staple of the program, and Musk is constantly working on that part of her presentation.
One of Musk’s first public appearances as Miss Michigan’s Teen was in the White Lake area’s Fourth of July parade, where she rode in a convertible and was greeted by onlookers and well-wishers. It was, for her, a remarkable event.
“Being able to come back to Whitehall and see everyone in the crowd and being recognized (was great),” Musk said. “I’ve always been recognized for dance, but being able to represent not only Michigan, but my hometown, and in something so much larger than dance, while also incorporating it, it’s magical. It’s so surreal. They’re just a lovely community. It’s been wonderful to come back and know that I have such a good support system behind me.”
From the outside, it’s easy to look at the Miss America program as a beauty pageant - words Lotridge bristles at. While Lotridge said of course participants are beautiful, the program produces much more than a pretty face.
“I used to get that, the first time I would ask somebody to judge for the first time in our program,” Lotridge said. “I remember a lot of the time, 90% of the time, they’d say, ‘This is nothing like what I thought it was. I was expecting pageant girls.’ Vivian (Zhong), who was our Miss Michigan three years ago now, is going to be a doctor this year. They’re not just pageant girls. Most of them are working on their MBAs, or their doctorates, or they’re in the middle of college. There’s just so much you get out of being in it. We benefit from it too.”
Even Musk said when she first heard about the pageant, her first thought was of Toddlers & Tiaras, a TLC reality show about youth beauty pageants she used to watch when she was younger. It didn’t take her long, though, to be dissuaded from that initial thought.
“It definitely was a little jarring going into it,” Musk said. I had no idea what to expect going into my first competition, Miss Shoreline’s Teen 2023. I told people I was competing at Miss Michigan after Miss Shoreline, (and people thought,) ‘So it’s a beauty pageant.’ The Miss America program is so much more than that. It has nothing to do with looks. It is a scholarship program, and that is why I joined.”
Musk said being part of the program has provided her not just with renewed self-confidence, but with great friendships.
“I was embraced by so many sweet girls I had never met before,” Musk said of her first Miss Shoreline’s Teen pageant. “I spent not even 24 hours with them and they were like my sisters. Going into that and being able to just spend time in the program, it’s a sisterhood. It’s so important...I was embraced with so much love.”
Miss America’s Teen participants can only enter the competition on the national level once, but those who have won state teen titles may return to try for the Miss America title. Musk is eager to pursue that dream if she gets the opportunity. She said the Boston Conservatory has already agreed to allow her a leave of absence if she becomes Miss America’s Teen so she can focus on those responsibilities. Her accelerated three-year program is too demanding to attempt while also being Miss America’s Teen - she says she is taking 20 credit hours this semester, and that number will go up once she declares her minor, creative entrepreneurship, and her specialty, dance pedagogy.
Despite the busy schedule, Musk continues to do community service work; Lotridge said she works with the Boston Boys & Girls Club. She views pursuing Miss America’s Teen as “a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
No matter what happens in Orlando, Musk will continue to pursue another lifetime dream - dancing with the Radio City Rockettes someday. In fact, if Musk can accomplish what she hopes to, she has a rock-solid life plan.
“The Boston Conservatory has a partnership with the Rockettes, so that’s what really drew me to them,” Musk said. “I’m hoping to be a Rockette and a backup dancer for industry artists. Broadway would definitely be a dream of mine, living in the city and performing as long as I can, but I do want to raise a family outside of the city. My ultimate goal is to own my own studio and teach.”