Beauty queen soldiers on in the world of Strip hotel-casinos

Wearing a smart blazer and skirt with high heels, Aileen Buri breezes through the lobby at Vdara on a recent Thursday with the quiet elegance one might expect from an assistant hotel manager of a luxury resort.

In two days, Buri, 30, would trade in her high heels for a pair of combat boots, temporarily giving up guest satisfaction surveys for the grittier task of treating water as a Nevada National Guard soldier. And in just a few weeks, she will set aside those combat boots and don a bejeweled crown to fulfill her duties at the Miss Las Vegas beauty pageant, where she will crown her successor.

Buri leads a busy life: assistant hotel manager, sergeant in the Nevada National Guard, reigning Miss Las Vegas and Miss Nevada State.

"I don't know how I do it all," she says, laughing and shaking her perfectly coifed hair. "Balance."

In truth, she gets a lot of help from a supportive supervisor and an understanding family.

Buri is a role model to others, says her boss Andy Meese, director of guest services for Vdara at CityCenter. Not only does she serve as an example of what one person can do for his/her company and his/her country, she is also pretty good at her job.

"She has a very calm disposition. She's very calm under pressure but she can deliver," Meese says, adding that the front desk is the nerve center of a hotel and can quickly become one of the most stressful places to work in the resort.

As an assistant hotel manager, Buri helps oversee hotel operations including guest check-in and check-out, complaints, compliments, reservations, everything associated with the way Vdara runs. Often, she can be found in the lobby interacting with guests, or behind the front desk helping attendants.

She likes people and she enjoys solving problems, so it's become the ideal career for Buri. But hotel management is not what she envisioned for herself when she was a young girl growing up in Kansas City, Mo. Buri always thought she would become a nurse, like her mother and her older sister.

"But I've always come back to hotels," Buri says. "No matter what."

In 1998, Buri moved to Las Vegas with her parents, sister and two brothers. At 15, she got a job working in the midway at Circus Circus. After graduating from Bonanza High School, Buri held a couple of mall jobs before landing a gig as a lifeguard at World Mark by Wyndham, a local timeshare.

"I guess I was peppy. I talked to everybody," Buri says of her lifeguarding days. "They told me normally, lifeguards weren't like that. They just sat in their chairs."

Three months into her lifeguard career, management offered her a position at the front desk. That launched a five-year stint with the company that culminated with a job in hotel management.

But she felt unfulfilled, like there was more out there waiting for her. So, in an effort to find her true calling in life, Buri quit her job to join the Army.

"I was looking for something but I just didn't know what," Buri says.

While the decision may seem impulsive, it actually made perfect sense for Buri. Her father served in the Army. Her two younger brothers both serve in the Guard and her older sister is a nurse in the Army Reserves. There was so much military camaraderie at home that Buri began to feel left out.

"I honestly felt out of the loop," she says of her family's friendly discussions about the virtues of being enlisted, as her brothers are, or commissioned, like her sister. "I didn't know what they were talking about."

She asked her recruiter for the "girliest job" available, ending up in the 100th Quartermaster Company as a water treatment specialist. Now a sergeant, Buri knows how to find water and how to make it drinkable. It's a skill she relishes.

When she returned from basic training and water treatment school, Buri, who is single, decided to get back into hotel operations. She's been at Vdara for more than a year now.

She also embarked on a journey to discover herself and learn how to get the most out of life. She took self-improvement workshops and became a beauty queen, earning two titles in quick succession last year. Her reign as Miss Las Vegas ends in November; Buri must give up her Miss Nevada State crown in May. Neither title is associated with Miss Nevada. Both are sponsored by Little Miss Nevada LLC.

Buri was inspired to enter her first beauty contest at the age of 28 after meeting the former Miss Las Vegas, who was also the former Miss Nevada State. Once, Buri watched her walk around with her sash and crown, asking for donations in a nightclub. People readily gave money, something that left Buri with the impression that a person can do a lot of good by wearing a sash and crown.

"I think every little girl wants a crown and thinks they're a princess growing up," Buri says. "I said, 'If she can do it, I can, too.' "  

It has provided Buri with the opportunity to do something fun while raising money for causes she supported. So far, she has helped raised money for the Nevada Blind Center.

When her reign is over, Buri plans to hang up her pageant dresses. It's too time-consuming, what with being in the military and working full time.

Her Guard enlistment is up in 2014. The military, she says, has taught her a lot about life, work and expectations. She learned about leadership and teamwork, two things she relies on every day in her job at Vdara. When her contract ends, she may pursue her options of becoming an officer.

"I love teaching my soldiers. I like being an NCO," Buri says. "I like being in there with up and coming soldiers and molding them and growing them into the people who are going to be the next leaders."

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @StripSonya on Twitter.