Brooke Mills paid her dues on the way to this year’s Miss New Hampshire crown.

In fact, she’s suffered greatly over the past decade, after an accidental kick to her face during gym class left Mills with a concussion that continues to affect her life to this day.

She lost her ability to dance. She lost her ‘A’ average at Concord High School, her grades dipping to Bs and Cs. She’s lost her balance and parts of her memory. She kept her eyes on one of her goals – winning the Miss NH crown. She competed four times and kept coming up short of the state title. The one her mother, Stephanie Foisy Ryan, won in 1995.

Mills reached her potential during those four Miss NH events, standing tall, singing like a bird and nudging the headaches and imbalance aside, even as her lifelong dream of winning the crown and advancing to Miss America eluded her.

Until now. The four-year drought ended Saturday night at Pinkerton Academy’s Stockbridge Theater, marking the first time in the event’s history that a mother and her daughter have won the title.

Mills, who will be 24 this month, and Miss Portsmouth, Morgan Torre, the two finalists Saturday, faced each other on stage, their hands clamped tightly together, their eyes locked.

“I was breathing heavily,” Mills said.

The Miss America competition will likely be held in December at a yet-to-be-determined site.

These days, Mills delivers speeches to junior and high school students about the danger of concussions, which will become part of her platform and responsibilities as Miss NH. It’s a topic that she’s all too familiar with.

She was playing handball during gym class when she was a freshman at Concord High. She bent over to retrieve the ball and says a classmate tried to kick it away and caught Mills flush on the left side of her head. She lay unconscious. Later, she felt dizzy. She had a black eye.

“I just didn’t feel like myself,” Mills said. “I was confused and fatigued. I don’t remember walking to the nurse’s office, but I do remember getting lost on my way. And I knew my way around pretty well at the time.”

She’s had trouble ever since, in various forms. First, she said she felt fine after just a few weeks, so she went back to school and fell asleep in English class.

“That’s very unlike me,” Mills said. “(The teacher) woke me and that’s when I knew something was wrong.”

She carried her ailment nearly everywhere she went, hoping the headaches and fatigue would simply vanish. 

They didn’t, and they haven’t. That’s what Mills wants others to know. If you are concussed, rest and be ready for a long fight that is winnable.

Mills passed out during neighborhood walks with her family. Headaches, vertigo and memory loss were common. Mills, though, says it’s not nearly as bad as it once was.

But it remains.

“I have accepted that this will happen for the rest of my future,” Mills said. “I’ve learned to live with the issue that lingers. I’ve learned how to cope.”

One activity she had to relinquish was dance. Mills practiced and performed with the Concord Dance Academy for years. Jazz, tap, ballet.

Sometimes, dancing would give Mills a headache. She knew her comeback attempts in this area were fruitless. 

Enter Mills’s adaptability. She had competed in smaller events starting at age 13. By the time she was 17 and began eyeing the state title, Mills needed to change her talent portion of the contest. From dancing to singing.

Dancing and post-concussion syndrome – which is what a concussion is labeled if the pain lasts more than three weeks – don’t mix. Fear not, though. Mills began singing in the school choir and at Rundlett Middle School at age 15. That, she knew, would allow her to make a seamless transition during competitions from dancing to singing.

“I really mourned the loss of dance for a long time,” Mills said.

She was locked in Saturday night at Pinkerton Academy. She sang “Always Remember Us This Way,” By Lady Gaga.

“I felt great about it,” Mills said.

She’s competing in the national event later this year. She said that this is what she always wanted, that she could, finally, after four tries, follow in her mother’s footsteps and win the big one.

“I didn’t think of it a lot,” Mills said. “but I wanted to carry on this legacy.”

She insists that this is not an example of the overbearing mother pressuring her daughter to compete. And a mother, as in this case, who reached victory in the event herself.

“She did not make me or force me,” Mills said. “But she really provided a lot of role models because she was involved when I was a young girl. I was around the Miss New Hampshire Organization and I could look up to these women. This was a no-brainer for me to move into it.”

Ryan, who is the owner and clinical director of Crossroads Chiropractic, said she never pushed her daughter. She said the competition has moved far beyond a beauty pageant and focuses on the talents and potential of young women.

“This is not any different from Little League,” Ryan said. “You don’t hear of this too much anymore. It has so much more to offer than just superficial beauty.”

Case in point – the contest eliminated its swimsuit competition four years ago, replacing it with a fitness competition.

Mills points out that the organization has awarded scholarships that helped her pay for college, allowing her to graduate as a licensed chiropractor – the same thing her mom does in Pembroke – in a few weeks.

She still suffers from various ailments. Headache, dizziness, memory loss, fatigue. Her injury pushed her to seek legislation four years ago to formally create a Concussion Awareness Day each March.

It’s something she’s been thinking about for nearly 10 years, since a kick to her head changed her entire life.

She says she’s doing well.

“I struggle with it,” Mills said. “But I’m okay.”

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