Sixteen-year-old Jude Maboné was halfway through a six-mile run in 2012 when she suffered her first heart attack. Over the next two years, the elite track-and-field athlete survived five more exercise-induced heart attacks.
Ashamed of having a condition she associated with advanced age and poor lifestyle choices, Maboné kept her heart disease diagnosis close to her chest. Privately, however, the Southern California native wondered, “Is this the end of my life?”
She penned a bucket list—which included a run for the Miss America title. Starting in college, Maboné competed for Miss DC seven times before claiming the crown in 2023.
Pageants gave her a platform to advocate for proactive heart health and preparedness for cardiac emergencies and share her journey with heart disease—the leading cause of death among Americans.
“I have been saying the same things for years about taking care of your body, managing stress, learning CPR, and [knowing how to use] automated external defibrillators,” she says. “But now saying it with the Miss America brand behind my name gives me a whole different level of credibility.”
As part of her Check Your Heart campaign, Maboné has lobbied with the American Heart Association to create policy requiring cardiac emergency response plans in public schools and recorded a CPR video in American Sign Language with Gallaudet University and MedStar Health.
Although the opera singer wasn’t named Miss America at the 96th annual competition in January—which featured fellow Eagle, Miss Hawaii Star Dahl-Thurston, Kogod/BA ’20—Maboné showed a lot of heart, sharing her message on a national stage.
More than 121 million Americans live with cardiovascular disease; Maboné manages hers—which is either hormonal or environmental, not genetic—with diet, exercise, and beta blockers that help control blood pressure and heart rate.
Heart disease “is the most indiscriminate killer of Americans nationwide,” she says. But thanks to pageants, which have ignited her passion and amplified her purpose, Maboné has never felt more alive.