Beauty and brains: Carly Mathis has it all

LEESBURG — Model Tyra Banks once remarked about an admirable aspect of femininity: “We are often told we can’t have brains and beauty, and I really hope that my message is that you can put on that red lip and curl your hair and put on that power dress — you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.”

The daughter of Wendy and Billy Mathis gets it.

At 27, Carly Mathis has squeezed more out of life than most women twice her age. She owes much of where she is today to her parents. Her mother was Miss Albany in 1985 and her father is an attorney and a Lee County Commissioner.

In 2008, Carly Mathis was crowned Miss Albany Outstanding Teen. In 2011, it was Miss Historic Southern Plains and a slot as one of the top 12 finalists for the 2011 Miss Georgia pageant. In 2012, she picked up Miss Georgia Cotton and finished as the first runner-up, and heading into the Miss Georgia 2013 pageant she carried with her the title of Miss Atlanta.

She won Miss Georgia on her third try, earning a spot in the Miss America Pageant.

Heading to Atlantic City, Mathis’ goal was to make the first cut to 15.

“The Miss America competition was the best time of my life,” Mathis, who eventually finished in the Top 10, said. “All I wanted to do was make the first cut. On the final day of competition, we really didn’t have time to think much because things moved so fast. We only had a minute and a half to change clothes. It was crazy.”

In the meantime, Mathis earned a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Communications, and earlier this year she added a juris doctor (law) degree from the UGA School of Law. She was sworn in as a member of the Georgia Bar earlier this month.

Asked what was more important to to her — being Miss Georgia or being admitted to the bar — Mathis paused before answering.

“I was thinking about this the other day, and I’d have to say being admitted to the bar,” she said. “Only because I used the scholarship money from Miss Georgia to pay for law school. So I can’t put them all together as one, because without one I couldn’t have had the other. But I can put them together in that if I hadn’t won Miss Georgia, I wouldn’t have had the money to go to law school.”

In many respects, her life’s pathway was laid out when Mathis, with support from her mother, began competing in pageants at the age of 13. Her father was already a lawyer, so young Carly really got the best of both worlds.

“I never really thought about it before, but I do see the commonality,” Mathis said. “My dad has got the personality to be a pretty good lawyer. I got that from him. My mom is very kind and just positive all of the time. I think I have a pretty good mix of them, so it’s not really that surprising that I was going to be like both of them.”

Still, even at 27, Mathis said she’s not surprised by anything that has happened in her life.

“I always wanted to be Miss Georgia because I grew up in that world; it was around me all the time … and since I was little I wanted to be a lawyer, too,” Mathis said. “But I wanted to be Miss Georgia and a lawyer, too. It’s almost surreal that it’s all actually happened.”

So, after a trip to the mountaintop, where does Carly Mathis go from here?

“I’m actually pretty excited to get on with the next phase of my life,” she said. “I’ve been working really hard for a long time. I did pageants for a long time, and I’ve been in school for my entire life. I was in the pageant world for a long time and now that I am actually working, it feels good to give something back to the world.

“Whatever I do next, I’m sure it will be wonderful. I’m actually excited about what comes next because I don’t really know. All of my entire life, I have been working toward a goal. Now I don’t know what’s ahead of me.”