JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Caressa Cameron (right), Miss America 2010, crowns the new Miss Virginia, Chinah Helmandollar, at Hotel Roanoke on Thursday.

Wake up, take your vitamins, pin a crystal crown atop your head and go to work as a role model. Just another day for Miss America.

Caressa Cameron, Miss America 2010, came to Roanoke on Thursday. It was her first visit to Virginia, her home state, since winning the country's most famous scholarship contest in January.

She crowned Chinah Helmandollar, who assumed the role of Miss Virginia in her place. The two women then spoke to students at Lincoln Terrace Elementary School about decision-making.

"Choices you make right now will continue to affect you," Cameron, 22, told the students, after asking them what happens if they watch TV instead of studying on a school night. "Who you are is also a choice. Everything you do every day is about decision-making."

The students had cheered when Cameron, a Fredericksburg native, walked across a red carpet made of paper into the gymnasium. Her theme song, "There She Is, Miss America," played, and she waved to them with the appropriate closed-fingers, cupped-hand gesture.

Then, the students performed for her. Kindergartner Teauree Vincent, wearing a black fedora and white sparkly glove, did the moonwalk to a Michael Jackson song. Four fifth-grade girls danced, and their classmate Zy'Asia Mays recited a poem.

First-grader Brianna Wilson, wearing a white dress, white tights, a "Princess" sash, and a crown of her own, presented Cameron with yellow flowers and hugged the two women.

"I'll remember what she told us and taking pictures with her and saying the poem for her," said Zy'Asia, 11, after the assembly. "Don't let anybody bring us down and listen to what your parents tell you."

Cameron knows the influence she may have over children: Miss Virginia 2003, Nancy Redd, had spoken at her school years ago and inspired her.

"I had been made fun of more than you could believe -- because of my unibrow, because I wore hand-me-down clothes, because of my life in general," Cameron said. "It was her words specifically, and I remember it to this day ... You could become anything you wanted to be."

Talking about decision-making also is the way Cameron promotes HIV-AIDS awareness, her personal platform in the pageant. Cameron's uncle died from AIDS when she was 8, and members of her community had stigmatized her family.

"We had kids in the neighborhood who would not come and play with us, because their parents told them they could contract the disease simply by playing with our toys," she said before the school assembly.

When speaking with younger children, such as those at Lincoln Terrace, she approaches the matter indirectly.

"It's about friendships, it's about relationship education, it's about boundaries," she said. "There's a core set of values and beliefs that shape how you make the decisions you make."

This trip was one of hundreds Cameron will take speaking to children at schools and hospitals across the country this year on behalf of the Miss America Organization and Children's Miracle Network, her national platform.

Though not officially crowned before this week, Helmandollar has made public appearances as Miss Virginia for about a month. Formerly Miss Smith Mountain Lake, the 23-year-old placed sixth in the 2009 Miss Virginia pageant at Roanoke and accepted the state crown after the other runners-up turned it down. She had been living in Hardy before her elevation to Miss Virginia.

"I had to put the crown on myself the first time," Helmandollar said, recalling her hesitancy not to have a Miss Virginia Organization affiliate crown her. "I thought, 'No, that's silly, I'll just put it on.' And oh my goodness, it was a really great moment."