Miss Teen of South Dakota!!

To say that this is a delayed blog is QUITE the understatement… I am going to tell you all about my wonderful trip to Pierre, South Dakota to staff at the Miss Teen of South Dakota pageant! (This may or may not have been at the end of the summer). I sincerely apologize for it being so incredibly late!
The very first thing that struck me as I was flying into Pierre was that this whole state was basically made up of farmland! There were literally fields EVERYWHERE! I’m from Idaho, you would think that this wouldn’t really affect me too much, but I was starting to wonder if South Dakota had any human beings living in it at all! Just as I had almost given up all hope of civilization, a small town began to come into view. The pilot then announced that we would be starting our initial descent into Pierre. It was a beautiful little town but I just could not believe that the capital of a state could be so tiny! It was great! I have always been a fan of small towns so this one hit the jackpot in my book.
Well, we of course landed and exited the plane at the airport. I met up with Steffanie Scholze and her sister; pageant weekend has begun! The beginning stages of setting up for a pageant are always exciting to me for some reason. I just love the anticipation of waiting for all of the candidates to arrive so I can see who I get to spend the entire weekend with. This time I wasn’t the only titleholder staffing at the pageant. I was allowed the privilege of working with Miss Teen of Missouri, Sara Miller! I could tell it was going to be epic!
Before I knew it, the girls had all arrived and we went through all of the briefings and the awareness test. Now it was time for some fun! The get-acquainted social is always a high point of the weekend because we all get to just hang out and be silly. The shirt-signing and the fun games that we played were all a blast! Plus there was punch and cookies to go along with it. :)
The rest of the weekend went along just like Miss Teen of Idaho did. You all know the drill by now, judges interviews, poise and personality projection, and practicing for the dance number. It all went splendidly! I had a few more girls to work with this weekend than I had the previous weekend so choreographing the dance was quite the task, but Sara and I worked it out and the girls performed so well! I could not have been more excited.
All in all, it was a perfect weekend. The girls were so amazing just like I had anticipated. We all had a blast getting to know each other while partaking in all of the activities crammed into a busy couple of days. The weekend could not have come away with a better Miss Teen of South Dakota! Congratulations to Katherine Van Gerpen!! I know she will do great representing all of the incredible young ladies of South Dakota.