Tinney won the Miss Alabama USA 2005 title in late 2004. She had competed in the state pageant on two previous occasions, placing third runner-up in 2003 and second runner-up in 2004. She had also placed fourth runner-up in the Miss Alabama Teen USA 2001 pageant and first runner-up in the same pageant the following year.
Tinney, a nursing student at Auburn University, plans to graduate in the spring of 2006. Her ambition is to become a nurse anesthetist, and she hopes to work at a children's hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, where she spent part of her childhood.
