OTHS’s Kissinger wins St. Clair County Junior Miss Contest
Filed Under Country Curtain | Posted on January 12, 2008
When the curtain fell on the first St. Clair County Junior Miss Contest, Alexa Kissinger of O’Fallon Township High School walked away as the big winner.
Kissinger not only won the overall competition, but she also won four of the six auxiliary categories at the contest. As a result, she walked away with $1,300 in scholarship money. She was awarded $200 for writing the best essay, $200 for the best interview, $200 for the talent portion of the contest, $200 for the best performance in the self-expression portion of the competition and $500 for the overall title.
Kissinger will head a delegation of four young women from St. Clair County who will take part in the Illinois Junior Miss Competition in April in the Chicago area.Taking second place behind Kissinger was Brittany Smith of Belleville East High School. She won the physical fitness portion of the competition, along with the overall scholastic award. She left the OTHS auditorium with scholarship money totaling $800.
The third-place winner was Kristina Bockhold of O’Fallon, who earned $300.
The fourth-place winner and final qualifier for the state competition was Allison Scott of O’Fallon. She earned $250 in scholarship money.
Also winning scholarship money was Amanda Ricketts of Belleville East, who captured the Spirit Award, which was worth a $200 scholarship.
For her talent portion of the competition, Kissinger sang “Crazy,” a country-western standard made famous by Patsy Cline and LeAnn Rimes.
The question for the self-expression portion of the contest was “What was your most memorable moment from your high school career?”
Kissinger talked about her immersion in the Hispanic culture during a summer program south of the border. Among Kissinger’s many high school accomplishments are Queen of the Madrigals, President of the Spanish Club, Show Choir Captain, membership in the National Honor Society, the morning anchor of the school’s closed-circuit newscast Panther Beat, membership in the Latino Roundtable of Collinsville, membership on the OTHS student council and membership of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions).
In all, eight girls took part in the St. Clair County Junior Miss Contest. They were: Kissinger, Bockhold, Ricketts, Smith, Scott, Breann Solomon of O’Fallon, Jennifer Knoth of O’Fallon and Megan Pea of Belleville West.
The competition was organized by Tianna Nell and Emily Boker, a sister duo from Shiloh that are former competitors at the Illinois Junior Miss contest.
Nell finished third at the contest in 1997, while Boker won the competition in 2007.
“We decided to sponsor this competition because my sister and I both noticed that almost all of the contestants at the state level were from the Chicago area,” Nell said. “This way, they’ll be four girls from St. Clair County — which is three more than there has been.”
All of the Junior Miss contests — from the local through the national level — judge contestants on talent, academic achievement, physical fitness, an interview and self-expression.
“It’s not at all based on looks or anything,” said Boker. “It’s not a beauty pageant. It’s about grades, talent and fitness.”
According to Boker, there was a major difference between the interview portion of the competition and the self-expression portion.
“The interview is done before the actual show part,” she explained. “It included 10 minutes of personal and current event questions. The self-expression is done during the show. You do it on stage. They ask you a random question. It’s designed to determine your poise and your ability to think on your feet. It was the hardest part of the competition because you didn’t know what the question was going to be.”
Boker used the scholarship money she won at the 2007 contest to attend Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
Kissinger plans on attending Northwestern University.
The 2007 competition marked the 50th anniversary of the America’s Junior Miss scholarship program. It was founded in Mobile, Ala., by the city’s junior Chamber of Commerce.
The first national competition was held in 1958 with 15 states sending representatives. Now, all 50 states send competitors to the national contest.
In the past, contestants at the Junior Miss Scholarship program include well-known women such as Diane Sawyer, Deborah Norville, Debra Messing, Julie Bryan Moran and Kim Basinger.
Since its inception, scholarships awarded at all levels of the competition have totaled around $90 million.
Twelve scholarships were awarded at the St. Clair competition.
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