Meet Miss New Jersey: Could Jessielyn Palumbo be NJ’s first Miss USA?

Jessielyn Palumbo hopes to do what no other Jersey Girl has done before — be named Miss USA.

The 24-year-old Wayne resident earned the title last year in Parsippany — when her name was announced, she "wasn't sure if it was real," Palumbo told the Bergen Record in December.

Now, she's days away from representing New Jersey in the Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas. If she wins, she'll go on to represent the U.S. in the Miss Universe competition.

"It feels so incredible to represent my state that I truly do love," Palumbo said in a video shared by the pageant this week.

Palumbo graduated with honors from Wayne Hills High School in 2010 and Cum Laude from The College of New Jersey in 2014, according to biographical information provided by the pageant.

In college she interned at Fadil Berisha and Maxim Magazine while pursuing her BFA in digital arts and a minor in fine arts. She was inducted in The Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society for her academic accomplishments.

In a video released this week by the pageant, Palumbo said she stumbled on photography as a sophomore in college — and has since built a business around the art. Her work has been published in Maxim & Glady’s Magazine, and she freelanced as an online photo editor for Maxim.

She paints as well, focusing lately on watercolors for sick children.

"I think when people meet me, they finally start to understand what Jersey's all about," Palumbo said in the video. "Of course, based on some television show or what people say, they always have a negative stereotype about New Jersey. But we have so much to offer, and it's not just what you've seen on TV."

For Palumbo, that means water sports including jet-skiing and boating.

As Miss New Jersey, she succeeds, Vanessa Oriolo, of Colts Neck.

The Miss USA pageant was owned by Donald Trump from 1996 to 2015, and had previously been aired by NBC and Univision. In late 2015, NBC and Univision announced they were cutting ties with Trump and the Miss Universe Organization after Trump made statements about Mexican immigrants the networks said were unacceptable. The pageant has since been purchased by WME/IMG.

It will air June 5 on Fox.