Photo by Romane Donadini
Lena Kirchner | Reporter
Oct. 1, 2015; 8:00 p.m.
Photo by Romane Donadini
The 2016 Miss Missouri USA and Miss Missouri Teen USA will be crowned this weekend at the Scheidegger Center. The Presentation Show will take place on Saturday at 7 p.m., and the Coronation Show will be held at the same time Sunday night.
Lindenwood rewards the newly crowned Miss Missouri USA and Miss Missouri Teen USA with a $57,600 scholarship. Runners-up will receive a scholarship worth $48,000, and semi-finalists will receive a scholarship of $37,600. A $33,600 scholarship will be offered to all the other participants.
Even though other colleges give out scholarships to pageant winners, the company that runs the pageants, Vanbros and Associates, states that Lindenwood is among the schools that give out the largest grants to pageant winners.
According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Lindenwood has hosted the Miss Missouri pageant on the Saint Charles campus since 2009.
Erica Sturdefant, Miss Missouri 2014, graduated from Lindenwood in 2013 and hosted the pageant last year, where she crowned her successor Rebecca Dunn.
Photo by Sabine Neveu
Dunn graduated from the University of Missouri in 2014 with a degree in Communication Science and Disorders. Currently she works as an anchor for Newsy.com and has her own YouTube channel, as well as promotes collaboration and cohesion among people.
The current Miss Missouri Teen USA, Christina Stratton, lives in Sedalia and is a junior at Sacred Heart High School. Stratton is the National Jr. Honors Society president, the choreographer at the high school’s dance team, and member of the math team.
In June and August of this year, Dunn and Stratton went to compete for Miss USA as well as Miss Teen USA. While Dunn couldn’t move to the second round, Stratton placed in the top fifteen and won the Miss Photogenic Teen USA award.
On Sunday, Oct. 4, the Coronation Show held at Scheidegger will determine which two girls will follow Dunn’s and Stratton’s footsteps.
