Miss Missouri USA 2016 and Miss Missouri Teen USA 2016 will be crowned this weekend at Lindenwood University in St Charles.  The new Missouri winners will be the second pair of new Vanbros titleholders for 2016.  Contestants are posted on the Warriors for Ross site here - in Illinois earlier in the month, people's choice voting contributed more than $15,000 towards this worthy charity!  Contestant numbers are up in both - between Miss and Teen there are over 120 contestants this year.

In the Miss division the only returning runner-up is Miss MO Teen USA 2011 and 2015 second runner-up Sydnee Stottlemyre.  I loved last year's top five so I'm disappointed more aren't back!  2015 Teen 3RU Kennedy Thomas and 4RU Hannah Beilman are competing in Miss this year for the first time, as is 2014 Illinois Teen runner-up Madison Langley and 2011 Illinois Teen runner-up Shenell Randall (there are two other Beilman's competing this year, Olivia and Samantha... sisters?).  Lexy Kadey, third runner-up at Miss Colorado USA last year, and Teen runner-up in 2013, has returned to the state where she first competed as a Teen. Lexy is utilising her Lindenwood scholarship, and I'd interested to see how many other contestants are too.  Also competing is Samantha Shackleford, 3RU at Miss MO Teen USA 2007 who last competed in Miss in 2011.  There are two MO 2015 semi-finalists back: Tori Kruse (who has competed in Iowa previously) and Alexandria Spry.

In Teen, first runner-up Dallas Ezard​​, daughter of Miss Missouri USA 1993 Stephanie Nunn Ezard, is competing again; she was also a semi-finalist in 2012.  None of the other semi-finalists are back!   There are a few returning non-finalists, including one who had competed in Colorado until this year (again, Lindenwood scholarship?), but for the most part this is an entirely fresh group of contestants.

Click "read more" or scroll below to view the full list of contestants.

A huge congratulations are in order for Susie Leica, the new Miss Michigan USA 2016 and Unjaneé Wells, Miss Michigan Teen USA 2016!  This is the first time in a long time that I have correctly predicted both winners, even if I forgot to vote for the "Road to" contest on USB (mega bummer).  Susie was third runner-up in 2011 and a semi-finalist in 2012 but had not competed since then.  Unjaneé was second runner-up in 2015 and fourth runner-up in 2014 - she is the first returning runner-up to win since Ruby King in 2013, and only the third returning RU to win in a decade!  This is the first year since 2004 that both the Miss and Teen winners in Michigan are returning runners-up!  ​

Bar one, in both devisions every single contestant who made the top five this year had competed previously.  In Miss, first runner-up went to 2014 semi-finalist Krista Ferguson.  Second runner-up was Samantha Skowronek, who last competed as a Teen in 2009 alongside fourth runner-up Sarah Gerberding who has now been a runner-up four times.  Third runner-up was Elizabeth Johnson who dropped back one spot from last year.  Amongst the semi-finalists, Mari Doan got back amongst the top fifteen after two years as a non-finalist in Iowa.  Kaiya Montague also avenged her non-finalist spot from last year, and 2015 Teen runner-up Stephanie Stavrou showed that age was no barrier to making the top fifteen.

The Teen first and second runner-up spots went to 2015 semi-finalists Aria Hutchinson and Emily Finn respectively.  Third runner-up was the only newcomer amongst the top fives, Alexis Fagan-Williams.  Fourth runner-up was 2015 non-finalist Tiffney Cicotte.  All but three of the rest of the top fifteen were newbies.