By PAMELA GOULD

The words we speak are like toothpaste. Once they're out, they're impossible to suck back in.

That was the message Miss Virginia Caitlin Uze left with seventh-graders at Thornburg Middle School in Spotsylvania yesterday as she urged them to do their part to eradicate bullying.

Uze, a 22-year-old from Arlington County, was crowned Miss Virginia in June. She will compete for the Miss America crown in January, a crown currently worn by Spotsylvania County's Caressa Cameron.

Uze is traveling to 22 schools across the state delivering a message about developing a positive self-image, stamping out bullying and the dangers of alcohol use.

During an assembly at Thornburg, she showed a short video that started with an average-looking woman. Before their eyes, the woman was transformed into a beauty with the help of make-up, a hair stylist and the wonders of digital doctoring.

Uze told the students that photos they see in magazines are like that: an image crafted into someone's version of beauty--not reality.

"Perfection is an illusion," she said.

Everyone has flaws and people need to look beyond the "packaging," she said.

She drove home that point by displaying an unedited photo of a seventh-grade girl with glasses and braces and a royal blue T-shirt with the word "Princess" on front.

That awkward middle-schooler was Uze.

She said if she had believed all the things people said to her when she was growing up, she would never have become Miss Virginia.

She started school with an obvious lisp and suffered painful teasing from her classmates.

Later, she was picked on because of her weight, her glasses and braces, because of her choice in clothes, and even because she was a good student.

"You need to define your goals and let no one deter you," she said. "If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't be here."

Uze said when she began public speaking, people told her no one would listen to someone with a speech impediment.

When she decided to compete in pageants, people said she'd never win.

It took three tries before she became Miss Virginia.

It took four for Caressa Cameron to win that title. Then she went on to become Miss America.