For Union High School senior Madison Phelps, her coronation as the next Miss Dowagiac Saturday night was incredible moment in her life — if only because the person placing the crown atop her head onstage that night was her best friend, the previous Miss Dowagiac, Anne Zebell.

Friends since childhood, Phelps was inspired to try out for the pageant after witnessing how the title transformed Zebell. She even dedicated her platform speech at the event to the outgoing queen, sharing with the packed middle school auditorium the ways her lifelong friend helped deepen her passion for her faith, music and volunteering.

“We actually joked about it before the pageant,” Phelps said. “Anne told me that if I won, she would cry so hard. We were both in tears in the end. It was special that we got to share the moment together.”

Now that the initial buzz of the pageant is over, Phelps and her court of honor are preparing to take over the mantle and serve their hometown.

Born and raised in Dowagiac, Phelps attended schools for years at Grace Christian School before transferring to Dowagiac Union High School for her senior year in the fall. Like Zebell, Phelps is a lifelong parishioner of Sister Lakes Community Church, where she serves a member of the church’s worship team, playing and singing Christian-themed music for their parishioners as well as at other churches in the community, Phelps said.

Like her faith, music has been an important part of the young woman’s life since she was young. On top of singing with her church choir, Phelps taught herself how to play the ukulele and guitar several years ago, and picked up the drum last year after the previous player on the worship team quit, she said.

“Everyone loves music,” Phelps said. “You can say whatever you want, however you want, through song.”

Her church has also allowed her to follow another passion in her life: helping the less fortunate.

In 2014, Phelps joined Zebell and others from their church on a mission trip to Peru. While there, they got the chance to meet, play and sing with a completely new group of people, witnessing first hand how the citizens of the developing nation lived and expressed their faith.

“It opened my eyes,” Phelps said. “We may speak different languages and live in totally different environments, but we still worship the same God.”

She has maintained the same sense of volunteerism back home as well. For the last several years, Phelps has joined her mother, Rebecca, in volunteering with the ACTION ministries food pantry in Dowagiac, where she helps hand out food to needy families in the area.

Her years of selfless dedication to others has given her a unique perspective on her community, especially compared to many students her age, she said.

“Not everyone is as blessed as others of us are in the community,” Phelps said. “These people need our help, and I have the ability to help them. It is a real blessing.”

Phelps is also a longtime volleyball player, playing for not just the high school but for a local beach league as well.

As a new face at the high school, trying out for Miss Dowagiac has not just given Phelps the chance to follow in her friend’s footsteps, but to also get to know her classmates better, she said. Although there have been a lot of late nights and some embarrassing moments over the last several weeks in preparation for Saturday, she and the rest of the contestants developed a close bond in the process, Phelps said.

“If anything, I would have come out of the pageant with some lifelong friends,” she said. “The experience will be something I will always remember.”

While she has not nailed down exactly which college she wants to attend after high school (she is weighing her options between three private Christian schools), Phelps said she wants to study music worship and mission studies, in order to continue to pursue her love of music and philanthropy.

In the meantime, she and her court — consisting of Miss Congeniality Vivianna Lucio, Second Runner-up Amanda DeLong and First Runner-up Emily Dodd — will continue to make more memories together as they represent Dowagiac in numerous events and functions throughout the year. Their first assignment comes in just a few weeks, when they will participate in the Dowagiac Ice Time Festival as well as the Young Professionals’ Daddy-Daughter Snowball on Feb. 4.

“I am excited to spend more time with them,” Phelps said. “We are going to have so many adventures together. This is only the beginning of our journey.”