One of my favourite sections of the site (even if I’ve never settled on the perfect name for it!), a look at all the Miss Florida Teen USA titleholders who’ve gone on to compete at Miss USA or in other state pageants. It’s always inspiring to see where their journeys have taken them — whether they won a crown early on, competed once or twice and then hung up the heels or kept showing up year after year, showing persistence in their quest to walk the Miss USA stage.
Florida was one of the last states to crown their first former teen. Cristen Duren (97) became the first to win the Miss Photogenic title at both Miss Teen USA and Miss USA. Since 2006 two more have competed at Miss USA: Anastagia Pierre (2004) in 2009 and Jillian Wunderlich (2008) who won Miss Indiana USA 2011. Anastagia later won the Miss Bahamas title and competed at Miss Universe 2011.
4th runner-up
1
Cristin Duren (1997)
Non-finalist
1
Anastagia Pierre (2004)
* Where the semi-finalists are cut in multiple stages before the top 5 or 6
Photogenic
1
Cristin Duren (1997)
Florida
2
Cristin Duren (1997), Anastagia Pierre (2004)
1980s
0
1990s
1
Cristin Duren (1997)
2010s
0
2020s
0
Winners highlighted in italics. Stats may be inaccurate, especially for the 1980s & 1990s as I am reliant on newspaper archives which do not list all contestants.
1980s
1
Stefanie Smith (1986)
1990s
4
Michelle Benitez (1990), Corinna Clark (1995), Kelly Gaudet (1996), Cristin Duren (1997),
2000s
5
Anastagia Pierre (2004), Victoria Ratliff (2005), Annilie Hastey (2007), Jillian Wunderlich (2008), Kayla Collier (2009)
2020s
0
Florida, Alabama, California, Indiana
2nd runner-up
4
Stefanie Smith (1986), Michelle Benitez (1990), Brianne Bailey (2013), Lou Scheiffelin (2018)
4th runner-up
1
Kelly Gaudet (1996)
Semi-finalist
4
Corinna Clark (1995), Victoria Ratliff (2005), Kayla Collier (2009), Katia Gerry (2019)
