Mrs. Ohio International®

Jeri Ward - 3rd Runner-Up

1.When you hear the saying "be the change" what comes to your mind first?
“You are planted, not buried.” During my fourth brain surgery in three weeks, my neurosurgeon looked down at me as I laid on the operating table unable to speak or move and said, “just remember, you are planted, not buried”. At 30, everything in my life had changed in the blink of an eye, and I felt buried. I have learned that perspective is everything, and now I am so grateful that I was planted.

2.How would you describe your husband?
Learning! I could not read until the age of 17 due to a visual processing disorder, so since the second I learned how to read, I have been obsessed with learning. I love taking on the challenge of not knowing how to do something but learning to become successful. Most recently I’ve learned how to make my own podcast to continue educating people all over the world. That is the most exciting feeling there is!

3.If you could revisit one memory as a child in your mind, what would it be and why?
Gratitude is the highest form of self-care, and I am so lucky to teach this practice every day to people all over the world. Learning to be grateful is life-changing, and the best part: it’s free! Upon creating The Lemonade Project and the first youth and adult Self-Care Committees in Ohio, I’ve been able to watch firsthand my teachings of gratitude being interweaved into, and save, the lives of thousands of people.

4.How would someone describe you when you were in high school?
I may look 31, but in my heart, I am at least 80! I am an old, old soul. I rejoice when I am in bed by 8:30 p.m., I love spoiling my best friends children by giving them candy and sending them home for their parents to handle, and being only a minute away from death last year, I was forced to find out what is important in life at a young age.

5.If money did not matter.. what would you buy for your husband and why?
My hubs and I have absolutely loved starting a new date night tradition during isolation: Murder Mystery Box. This is a box that is mailed to our house monthly, were we play detectives, and solve a crime at our dining room table. We spend hours going through the clues together and making suspect charts. I am a huge Dateline fan, so this activity brings all my favorite things together in our own Saturday Night Mystery!