Sunshine Yates is a Falcon wife, a mother and the reigning Mrs. Colorado U.S.Born on a rainy day in October 1975, she credits her parents for a name that suits her personality most of the time.”(My mom and dad) told me that the doctor said (the day she was born), “Oh, what a ray of sunshine,” Yates said. “That’s just my personality – 95 percent of the time.” Some find her name a bit unusual, but Yates said it beats her dad’s alternate choice: Pixy Sue.The Mrs. Colorado U.S. pageant is her first.”I had never been in a pageant before in my life,” Yates said. While talking to a friend at Falcon’s Safeway Starbucks, she encountered the executive director for Mrs. Colorado United States, Lonnie Gibson, who was doing an interview at the time.”I was just talking about how I’d love to make a difference, and it was awesome to hear there was a Mrs. pageant,” she said. “And so they tried to get me to do it the first year, but I had just moved here, and I wasn’t ready.”A year later, after receiving an e-mail from the director, Yates decided she would enter the pageant. “He e-mailed me and said, “Can you please try it? You’d be such a great candidate.”Yates decided to give it a shot. She said she went into the pageant not with a competitive attitude, but as an opportunity to help her community.Her dream of helping children with life-threatening diseases will come true this December. As Mrs. Colorado U.S., she will distribute stuffed animals at area hospitals and other events.Although she had only three months to prepare for the pageant, Yates was amply prepared to speak about her platform – eating disorders. She has fought a battle with anorexia that started when she was very young. Yates entered her first rehabilitation clinic at age 12.”I grew up in a good family, but challenging,” she said. Her parents divorced when she was 11 years old, and her step-dad, who she described as very abusive, had an overeating disorder. “So I ended up not wanting to be by the kitchen. Avoiding the kitchen and avoiding him,” Yates said. “I was ashamed because of the abuse.”What many people find surprising about eating disorders is that it’s not a vanity issue but a control issue, she said.Yates continued to struggle with her eating disorder throughout her late teens and twenties.”When life gets stressful, it is easy to slip back into what is comfortable,” she said.Yates credits her survival to Remuda, an Arizona treatment center her husband discovered. Remuda is a Christian-based treatment center for women and adolescent girls with anorexia, bulimia and related issues. Although Yates said she will never fully recover from her eating disorder, she attributes Remuda to giving her the coping skills to deal with her disease and live a normal life.At age 30, she has been married to her high-school sweetheart, Ryan, for 12 years and they have two children: Preston, age 7, and Taylor, age 5. Yates is working on a bachelor’s degree via an online program through Michigan-based Jackson Community College. She also attends classes at Pikes Peak Community College in conjunction with the Jackson College program. Yates wants to pursue a career as an ultrasound technician.Yates said the Mrs. Colorado U.S. pageant was a wonderful experience in many ways. The pageant gave her the opportunity, not only to speak out about her personal experience with a destructive eating disorder, but also to help others deal with the disease.
