For Stefanie De Roux, Dallas is a city where she goes to school, hangs out with her friends and lives the typical life of an SMU student. But back home in Panama, life is anything but typical.

Since Sept. 5 De Roux has worn the crown of Miss Panama. Her face lights up TV screens nationwide and she cannot go to the supermarket without being recognized.

The importance of being Miss Panama this year is even greater since it is the 100th birthday of Panama’s independence from Colombia. The Miss Universe pageant will be held there in May where De Roux will be the hostess to 78 other countries.

Although De Roux received many gifts for winning her title, including a new car, money for a new wardrobe, a cruise and a new cell phone, her job consists of more than just being the pretty face of Panama.

“I will promote the centennial, get people motivated, work towards the country and receive all the tourists and people that come to my country,” De Roux said. “It’s like I’m sitting in this room waiting for all the doors to open. So many opportunities are there for you.”

De Roux’s life in show business started at the age of 15 when she entered a charity fashion show to help cancer research. Soon after, she was approached by an agency and began modeling.

“I wasn’t a self-esteem person or very confident when I started out. That wasn’t me,” De Roux said.

De Roux traveled around Europe after her graduation from high school and is now a second-year film major at SMU. When her agency approached her about entering the Miss Panama contest, De Roux says she didn’t look at the contest as a way to win the title.

“I saw it as an opportunity to learn a lot about the medium I want as a career,” De Roux said. “Panama’s largest TV network covered the contest, and it was a chance to learn. I thought of it as that, not that I’m going to win.”

The pageant itself was more than a learning process. It was a grueling schedule of 13-hour days full of media appearances to help the public get to know the 14 contestants.

De Roux swears the massages the contestants received to help tone the body weren’t as nice as they sound, and says she would spend about two hours at the gym before practicing for the show. The contestants would practice how to walk in 5-inch heels with perfect posture, how to put on makeup and how to strike poses on stage. The contestants also traveled around Panama, making appearances throughout the country.

“It was so weird. We had escorts and when we would get off the buses there would be tourists taking pictures of us, people making the traditional Panamanian dance for us and little kids running up to us and hugging us,” De Roux said. “All of the attention was nice but overwhelming.”

It became even more intense as the competition drew near.

“I just kept praying to God for peace of mind. I recommend praying to anyone. It is great and it kept me calm,” she said.

When she made the top five finalists, De Roux says praying helped her a lot, especially during the interview.

“It’s hard to answer on the spot and please everyone,” she said. “They asked me what role I believe women play in Panama and if you say the professional role, then non-professionals will disagree and vice versa.”

De Roux said that catching up with her SMU schoolwork was harder than the Miss Panama contest. After missing two weeks of school, De Roux was more than appreciative of her teachers who understood and supported her through the process.

“I was happy that I at least won, so they couldn’t be like, ‘Oh, I give you two weeks off and this is what you do, nothing,'” De Roux said.

De Roux said that after winning, her teachers understood she had official government business that she had to do in Panama.

Timothy Dunn, a philosophy lecturer, was one of the teachers that allowed De Roux to miss extended amounts of school.

“It was such an unusual request… but I was very impressed with how articulate she was,” Dunn said. “She was willing to work and make up what she missed so it was easy to grant her request.”

De Roux’s workload now extends beyond the work from her professors. She will have to learn everything about Panama, from the folk dances to the history. She will go on tours and visit every town of Panama, as well as make many appearances both in person and on TV. She will also work with the Miss Panama charity to help educate people about family planning.

“It’s a lot of pressure and there are high expectations that I have to fulfill but this is what I love. Not being in the pageant but the world around it,” she said. “You meet so many different people. It’s wonderful and I love what I’m living and I love the people who surround me.”