PRATT − Three-year-old Ava Lott looked like a tiny princess in her purple gown, sparkly silver slippers and plastic tiara as she danced across the Pratt Community College basketball court mimicking the Miss Kansas contestants on stage.
She is living in a year where a girl can grow up to be a candidate for president, fight on the front lines of military combat, be the head of a Fortune 500 company, become almost anything she wants to be. It’s a world far from the one that crowned Pauline Sayre the first Miss Kansas in 1933.
So why would a woman still want to be Miss Kansas in 2016?
As the Miss Kansas pageant turns 75, a generation of women are competing in more than a beauty pageant. They’re finding it gives them a stage and a voice at an age where they have trouble being heard, or even taken seriously.
Behind the glittering white smiles, spray tans, runway stumbles and botched answers, they’re spokeswomen for causes, from opposing texting while driving to speaking out on body image and anorexia.
“For me, being so young, having people in the business world listen to me and take me seriously was hard,” said Hannah Wagner, the reigning Miss Kansas. “Having a sash gave me a microphone, and those people now listen to me and take what I have to say to heart instead of just brushing me off.”
Lisa McNiel has known that since she won Miss Kansas in 1982.
“What they used to tell me is that Miss Kansas changes with who Miss Kansas is,” McNiel said. “They have their own platform, their own mind, so it changes with who she is.”{p dir=”ltr”}Even as times have changed and the world has opened new possibilities to women, the pageant has grown and continues to shape and mold the women involved in the pageant.{p dir=”ltr”}”It has evolved and developed even more than when I was involved,” McNiel said. “It was relevant because of fitness and being well-rounded and having the ability to express yourself and having a passion and a cause, and those things are all still relevant today. It’s more relevant to women today.”{p dir=”ltr”}Kendall Schoenekase won the swimsuit competition Tuesday night as Miss Johnson County, but she came to the pageant as a practicing nurse who had been in a car accident caused by texting. She chose to use the pageant to spread a message about texting and driving.
“This organization allowed me to have a platform, it gave me a voice, it gave me the backing of a powerful organization, to go out and spread that message around the community and grow my organization, and, because of it, amazing doors have opened,” Schoenekase said.
Her organization, Kansans Care Campaign, works to make texting and driving illegal nationwide.
Miss Metro KC, Makayla Weiser, performed a ballet dance that won her the talent competition. She plans to join the military after graduating from college and is a member of the Air Force ROTC.
Besides swimsuit and talent, the candidates are judged on a private interview, onstage live questions, and evening gowns. They invest many hours in the outcome.
“For about a month or two before the competition, it became a full-time job,” said Kim Dugger Attwater, Miss Kansas 1990. “I always worked out two hours a day, I would spend at least an hour on current events, whether I was reading something, watching something, reading a book, formulating my thoughts on certain topics ... and my talent, singing, I always spent at least an hour a day on.”
The winner of the Miss Kansas pageant will be able to compete at the Miss America Pageant later this year. Three Miss Kansans have been crowned Miss America, most recently in 1996.
Theresa Vail, Miss Kansas 2013, was also the first woman to show tattoos during the swimsuit portion in the Miss America Pageant.
The recent Miss USA pageant, separate from the Miss Kansas and Miss America pageants, created a national buzz when Miss California was asked a question about the economy. Many felt the question was too hard, and therefore unfair.
“I thought they were tough questions, but that’s pretty normal,” Attwater said. “That is every bit the type of question that they ask in interviews.”
Critics assert that the swimsuit competition promotes unrealistic body image standards and encourages eating disorders.
Jade Dowling of Hutchinson came to the pageant as Miss Augusta, after suffering from an eating disorder, to promote a healthy lifestyle.
“I suffered from anorexia when I was younger because I was constantly reminded of society’s perfect image,” Dowling said. “To those girls that think it’s just an overall picture that you need to obtain, it’s definitely not, and that’s exactly why I’m here, to show that you don’t have to be perfect to win Miss Kansas.”
Dowling believes that the pageant does matter today, and that there is more to it than meets the eye.
“It’s about strong women coming together,” Dowling said. “All of these women are going to be doctors and lawyers and they have huge ambitions, and it’s not just a girl in a gown, like people think.”