SACO — For Christine Blake, wearing a tiara is not all about glamour.

Blake, 36, was crowned Mrs. Maine”“America on Mother’s Day and has used her role as a public figure to help promote wellness and music education.

Blake is a family practice physician at a private practice in Westbrook, is married to her high school sweetheart, James, and has four children.

She participated in other pageants when she was younger and has done some modeling. She says that what now drives her as Mrs. Maine is the opportunity to use her position as an authority figure to help others.

“It’s volunteer work, is really what it is,” she said.

Juggling an already busy schedule of family, work and community service, Blake has taken on appearances and more charitable work as part of her role as Mrs. Maine.

“The busier I am, the more motivated I am. I don’t think about napping,” she said.

Two projects the Mrs. America Pageant supports are the National Association for Music Education and the National Anthem Project, so Blake has been promoting both music and the National Anthem.

“I love this song. It makes me cry. It just means a lot to me to be an American,” she said.

As Mrs. Maine, she works with kindergartner students to teach them the anthem along with a word recognition activity.

“I love kids, they’re one of my favorite groups to work with,” she said.

Music has played an important role in Blake’s life. When she was an adolescent, playing flute and clarinet helped Blake face the struggles of junior high school.

Later, during medical school, she and a friend started to go to country karaoke once a week to help alleviate the stress of her hectic schedule.

A few years ago, after dealing with a medical issue, she needed to build up her lungs. Instead of lung therapy, decided to start singing, and joined local group Women in Harmony, where she said she met an amazing group of women.

“Music has been therapeutic. It’s brought me through some of the most difficult times,” she said.

It’s important for people to have an outside outlet, something they’re excited about, she said.

Being Mrs. Maine has given Blake new opportunities such as singing the national anthem at The Ballpark in Old Orchard Beach recently. She had never sung the anthem by herself before, she said.

Another cause the Mrs. America pageant supports is Susan G. Komen For the Cure, focusing on breast cancer prevention. This is important to Blake, as her step-mother is a cancer survivor and she had an aunt who died of breast cancer. After her aunt died, Blake and her husband were foster parents for her young cousins for six months.

Blake is passionate about breast cancer prevention and encourages women to have mammograms, which she said can save their lives.

This ties in with Blake’s personal platform, which is preventative health care and health education. She does blood sugar and blood pressure screenings and speaks to groups about diabetes and breast cancer prevention.

As a health educator, she wants to dispel myths about doctors as scary medicine pushers, she said, and use a team approach. People may not see a doctor because they are afraid or don’t have health insurance, and they are not getting the information they need, said Blake.

Being a physician is more than prescribing medication, Blake said, and she promotes healthy lifestyle and nutrition, both for her clients and her family.

She has made short exercise videos and posted them on YouTube for her patients and has a Facebook page where she gives quick fitness tips and motivates others to be more active.

Blake said she encourages her children to exercise and engages them in activities such as spontaneous dance parties at home. She and her family participate in road races, which combine her passions of fitness and charity work, and she said her children start participating in them when they are two years old.

She also volunteers at the Biddeford Free Clinic.

Blake also enjoys sewing, and makes gowns for low-income teens and charity events. When she was a teenager, her family had some financial struggles, she said, and she was in a similar position.

She enjoys seeing the teens’ excitement that comes from being able to look good for a glamorous night.

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.