Sophie Wallace has lived in Falkirk her whole life. Recently she was in the finals of Miss Scotland, representing Falkirk, for the second year in a row. She competed alongside her good friend, Gail Wilson, who is also from Falkirk.
Sophie has always been active in the community as she is a former international display gymnast and has travelled around Europe performing at gymnastics festivals with Falkirk Infinity Gymnastics Club, her previous squad. Sophie has written a weekly lifestyle column in the Falkirk Herald since she was 14 and she decided media was the route she wanted to go down when choosing a career. She went on to obtain a BA (Hons) degree in Multimedia Journalism at Glasgow Caledonian University. She is currently a Broadcast Journalist at Kingdom FM in Fife, previously at 103.1 Central FM.
Prior to entering Miss Scotland, Sophie had been modelling for some time and signed as a professional model with Superior Model Management in Glasgow when she was 17.
Sophie first took part in the Miss Scotland competition in 2017 and placed second, and then competed again in 2019.
She says, “It was an amazing experience.” While competing she did things such as judging the best dressed competition at the Ayr races, being put through a professional fake-tanning course, training with some of the country’s most renowned personal trainers, being a Disney princess for a day and modelling for exciting, upcoming clothing brands.
Sophie says, “The opportunities as a result of taking part in the Miss Scotland competition two years in a row have been phenomenal. They have catapulted my career in broadcast journalism and modelling with a number of photographers and filmmakers looking to collaborate as a result.”
She elaborated that the experience has been a huge confidence boosting opportunity. Sophie had low self-esteem as a teenager and was subject to bullying throughout primary school because she is tall. The competition has also helped develop her social skills and improve her public speaking abilities which are great to have for all aspects of her career!
Each Miss Scotland competitor chooses a charity to fundraise for and Sophie fundraised for Carers Trust Scotland two years in a row. She has raised over £2,000 for the charity and has also raised its awareness across Scotland. She says, “I get massive gratification from working so closely with my chosen charity and partner charities.” Carers Trust Scotland provide support services for approximately 780,000 of Scotland’s unpaid carers. Sophie was appointed as their first charity ambassador, representing Scotland’s Young Unpaid Carers. She got involved with the charity after seeing first-hand the hard work and dedication unpaid carers put into looking after someone close to them who is unable to live independently. To fundraise she has hosted countless events, including charity evenings and pub quizzes, all in order to raise awareness of the role of unpaid carers and the need for support for them. Sophie also launched the #AyeCare campaign alongside the charity, which aims to raise online awareness about the sheer scale of the issue in Scotland. The campaign encourages all social media users who either are unpaid carers, or know someone who is, to post a status/picture using the hashtag. The campaign also looks to raise awareness around what an unpaid carer actually does – often people don’t realise they’re entitled to support because they don’t identify as being an unpaid carer and are therefore struggling in silence.
Sophie says that she is lucky in her job, as she gets to use the broadcasting platform to raise greater awareness about the work of Scotland’s unpaid carers.