Miss Nebraska Lex Najarian Vies for Miss USA 2019

All four boys played football in college and then professionally. Lex’s oldest uncle Jon was a linebacker for the Chicago Bears for a little while and stayed in Chicago to become involved in the stock market and the Chicago Board Options Exchange. Lex’s father Peter is the youngest of the four siblings, and after playing football, including with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Minnesota Vikings and Sacramento Surge, moved to Chicago and started trading stocks with Jon in the early 1990s. They started several financial companies together and sold the online brokerage firm TradeMonster to Etrade in 2016 for $750 million. Both brothers are contributors to CNBC on the “Fast Money” halftime show and the “Fast Money” financial investing show in the evenings.

Uncles David and Paul Najarian owned a Popeye’s Chicken franchise in southern Minneapolis for many years, which has been sold now. Paul passed away from ALS in 2014 after a three-year battle. David now owns a gym in Oak Park Heights, Minn.

Lex had various Armenian friends as well as relatives while growing up in Connecticut. She said that while her grandmother was 100 percent Swedish the only Swedish dish she would make was Swedish meatballs. She learned Armenian recipes from her mother-in-law and always made dolma, paklava and various other Armenian foods. Lex said, “We would always have Armenian food at family gatherings.” Lex’s uncle David and her aunt have a restaurant in Minnesota where they are trying to incorporate some Armenian recipes, according to Lex.

In Nebraska, unlike Connecticut, she said there are very few Armenians. Lex said, “I don’t think I have come across very many at all during my time here. I have lived in Lincoln for about six years. Any time I see somebody with the last name ending in -yan or -ian, I always ask, are you Armenian. I always look for those.” She added, “I am really happy and proud to be part of a community that is so proud of our culture.”

As far as Lex knows, no one in her family has traveled to the Republic of Armenia. She said, “I would love to visit Armenia. I would love to bring everyone in my family and make it a big family trip. We have had two or three family reunions in the past with my dad, brothers and grandparents. It would be a really cool thing to have an Armenian family reunion in Armenia.”

In a few months, Najarian will go compete at Miss USA, the national pageant. If she were to win, she would give her Miss Nebraska title to her runner-up, and if not, keep it for a full year. As Miss Nebraska, she began to focus on spreading awareness of Lyme disease, she said, “because I am now realizing how big my voice is and how big of an audience I have. My mom suffered from Lyme disease. She has had it for about 20 years now but was only diagnosed 3 years ago when we moved to Minnesota. I shifted gears because I realized that while I have my whole life to pursue everything I want to do in fitness and health, this is a critical year where I can make a real difference for the Lyme disease community by advocating for proper diagnoses and treatment processes.”

She said that the pageant process might be difficult but, she said, “We have all chosen to enter these competitions so I think that it is just a matter of being mentally prepared. We all know we are going to be judged and it is very subjective judging. Some think skinny is beautiful, some people think strong is beautiful, others think having more body fat is beautiful. I think it is up for us as women to do whatever we feel is healthy and beautiful and makes us feel good. It is up to each individual to decide to be strong enough to accept the results no matter what. Of course it is easier said than done.”

She had been working as a sales associate for Orangetheory Fitness in South Lincoln, Neb. after graduating the university but in February decided to take a break to focus fulltime on preparation for the next pageant as well as travel and appearances. She will be speaking to middle school girls at a yoga studio in a few weeks about female empowerment and feeling confident about their bodies. In April she will participate in an autism walk, and has some other events coming up.

She already went to Dallas and Austin Texas for some boot camps and to pick up her gowns for Miss USA in late January and early February, and at the end of March has another such camp. There, she does mock interviews, reads about current events, pop culture and US history, and practices walking and photo shoots. It is run by WME-IMG (William Morris Endeavor-International Management Group), a talent management group which puts on the national pageant. The VanBros organization helps prepare all the candidates from six states including Nebraska for the latter, as well as runs their state pageants.