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 Minnesota 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.
Despite more former Teens competing in California than any other stage, very few of them have been home-grown California Teen titleholders and only one Cali teen has ever won the Miss title – Shauna Gambill, who in 1998 came very close to being the first to win both Miss Teen USA and Miss USA outright!
Remarkably, after a string of all but one of the 1991-1996 Miss California Teen USA titleholders competing in Miss, the next to compete was Miss California Teen USA 2010 Emma Baker. Six of the 2010s Teens have returned to compete in Miss but so far none has won a title.
* Where the semi-finalists are cut in multiple stages before the top 5 or 6
Photogenic
2
Paige Swenson (1994), Sarah Cahill (1996)
2000
1
Paige Swenson (1994)
2003
1
Sarah Cahill (1996)
2007
1
Alla Ilushka (2007)
Minnesota
5
Paige Swenson (1994), Sarah Cahill (1996), Alla Ilushka (2007), Haley O’Brien (2010), Catherine Stanley (2014)
1980s
0
1990s
2
Paige Swenson (1994), Sarah Cahill (1996)
2000s
1
Alla Ilushka (2002)
2020s
0
States competed in: Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin
Gwen is the first Miss MN Teen USA and first 2020 Teen to return to compete in Miss after getting married!
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
0
1990s
4
Paige Swenson (1994), Sarah Cahill (1996), Jamie Duffney (1997), Laura Beth Reier (1999)
2000s
4
Serene Aandahl (2001), Alla Ilushka (2002), Allison Arling (2004), Vanessa Vonbehren (2007)
Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin
Winner
6
Paige Swenson (1994), Sarah Cahill (1996), Alla Ilushka (2002), Haley O’Brien (2010), Catherine Stanley (2014), Tori Trittin (2017)
1st runner-up
2
Jamie Duffney (1997), Laura Beth Reier (1999)
4th runner-up
2
Serene Aandahl (2001), Vanessa Vonbehren (2007)
Non-finalist
1
Allison Arling (2004)
