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 Utah 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.
Utah is unique because while they have had five former teens compete at Miss USA, I have recorded only one further Teen who competed at the state level and didn’t win! This is in large part to their Teen winners getting married at a younger age, so it will be interesting to see if this trend changes now that married women can compete in the pageant.
Of the five who competed at Miss USA, Melissa Leigh Anderson (1990) was the most successful, finishing as a finalist at Miss USA 1998. Tracy Kennick (1989) and Marin Poole (2005) also made the first cut.
Top 5/6
1
Melissa Leigh Anderson (1990)
Semi-finalist
1
Tracy Kennick (1989)
Top 15/16/20*
1
Marin Poole (2002)
Non-finalist
2
Kate Feinstein (2008), Angelia Layton (2010)
1996
1
Tracy Kennick (1989)
1998
1
Melissa Leigh Anderson (1990)
2005
1
Marin Poole (2002)
1980s
1
Tracy Kennick (1989)
1990s
1
Melissa Leigh Anderson (1990)
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
Tracy Kennick (1989)
1990s
1
Melissa Leigh Anderson (1990)
2020s
0
Utah
