Chelsea Ingram, a former Miss North Carolina pageant contestant and trained operatic singer, is beginning her TV career with WFFF-WVNY, the Smith Media-owned Fox-ABC duopoly in Burlington, VT.

WFFF-WVNY announced this week that Ingram is joining their team as a weekend meteorologist. Her first day is today.

“Chelsea is an up-and-coming weather anchor and we are very pleased to work with her as she begins her on-air forecasting career,” WFFF-WVNY news director Tracy Davis said, announcing the hiring.

Ingram has a degree in meteorology from North Carolina State University and is now completing her post-graduate work at Lyndon State University in Vermont.

In a 2010 interview with The Cary News, Ingram–then a student at N.C. State–spoke about confronting the stereotypes associated with being a beauty pageant contestant.

“A lot of people don’t realize how intelligent these women are,” Ingram said in the interview. “When you think about it, it takes a lot of intelligence to be able to balance your life, to be able to be organized and motivated. I’ve had to deal with a lot of adversity in my classes. A lot of my classes are 75 percent guys, and I would contribute to a lab report and they would say, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But once they get to know me, they change their mind.”