vocational program in Music Business & Recording Engineering. While attending college, Hanson was a professional cheerleader for the Los Angeles Rams for the ’91, ’92 and ’93 seasons. She represented the Rams at the Pro Bowl in 1993, cheering on the All-Star Cheerleading team that year. To pay for school she began competing in the Miss America Scholarship program. She is a former Miss La Habra 1991, Miss Orange County 1992 and Miss Garden Grove 1993. She won the title of Miss California in 1994 and competed at the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City in September of that year. Ten years later she would return to the Atlantic City stage in 2004 to serve as a celebrity judge where she helped select Deidre Downs, Miss Alabama, as the new Miss America 2005. Musical career One of Hanson’s first appearances was a backing vocalist on Rhett Akins' 1996 album Somebody New. In 1998 Hanson was signed to her first publishing deal as a songwriter with Acuff-Rose Music. She was a staff writer for Acuff-Rose from 1998 until 2003 when Sony/ATV Music acquired the Acuff-Rose catalog and the companies merged. Hanson would go on to write for Sony/ATV from 2003 – 2016. In the fall of 2016 she signed with Peermusic where she currently writes. Hanson began her career as a recording artist in 2002 with the release of her debut single “Beautiful Goodbye”, followed by her self-titled debut album being released on Capitol Records in 2003. She co-produced the album with recording engineer Greg Droman and co-wrote most of the songs on it. The album produced three hit singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including the Top 20 hit "Beautiful Goodbye", followed by "This Far Gone" at number 42 and "Half a Heart Tattoo" at number 40. She made her national TV debut on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on February 28, 2003. In 2007 she switched to Universal South Records, releasing her second studio album Thankful in early 2008, which she co-produced with GRAMMY award-winning mixer and producer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, Nick Brophy. It produced the singles "Joyride" and "'73", the former of which also reached number 42 on the country charts. In 2017 Hanson released a 5-song Christmas EP Under The Tree, her first release in almost 10 years since her 2008 album, Thankful. In July 2020 Hanson released a collaboration EP Here's To Hoping with Folk/Americana artist