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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ For Makenna Smith, wearing the Miss Oklahoma crown has been a way to do more often what she has been doing for years, urging kids to wear their seat belts.

The 24-year-old Smith credits buckling up with saving her life when she was 19 and her family's vehicle crashed on Interstate 35 near Norman, killing a young woman in the other car.

Since she became Miss Oklahoma last June, she figures she has carried her simple message of seat belt safety to 400,000 elementary, middle school and high school students.

"But I've actually been going to schools and speaking for the last 4¼ years, because when something is personal with you — it did save my life — you want to share it with everybody."

Along the way, she has heard back from some children who were in accidents and told her their lives had been saved because they had done what she asked them to do.

One young boy who went to school in Lookeba in western Oklahoma wrote her a letter after his family's auto ran off the road and hit a farm combine.

"Our car was cut up by the combine, but because I promised you, I had worn my seat belt and I was saved," she quoted the boy as writing.

Smith spoke to the Oklahoma Senate on Monday, and a resolution was adopted praising her for how she has conducted her reign as Miss Oklahoma.

It was a familiar setting for Smith, who was an intern in the Senate Communications Division en route to earning a journalism degree at the University of Oklahoma in 2005.

She later was named Miss Oklahoma City University, where she began work on a second degree in nursing. She plans to resume her studies when her reign ends later this year.

"After June 7th, I'll be a has-been. I'll be a former," she joked.

In the meantime, she hopes to influence as many school kids as possible to develop good habits in life, including life-saving ones like wearing seat belts.

"In elementary school, I relate it to something easy like brushing your teeth or making your bed," she said.

She asks students to raise their hands and make a promise to buckle up.

Wearing a crown, she says, "serves as kind of a megaphone. It helps you kind of get their attention."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.