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 Washington 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.
Washington was the last state to have one of their former Teen winners compete at Miss USA, which didn’t happen until Alex Carlson-Helo won in 2017! Since then, two more have joined her on the Miss USA stage, Imani Blackmon representing Washington and Summer Keffeler representing Nevada.
Unsurprisingly Washington also has a very low rate of former Teens who have competed on the state level. I have no record of any competing in the 2000-2011 period which is extremely uncommon, and also no records from the 1980s and 1990s (which may be more likely due to the lack of available information from newspapers).
The first on my list is Mandy Schendel (2008), who was 2nd runner-up at Miss Washington USA 2012 and then went on to win Miss Washington and place top 10 at Miss America.
1980s
0
1990s
0
2000s
0
2020s
0
After the rule change, Aly was the first former Teen from any state to compete while 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
0
2000s
1
Mandy Schendel (2008)
2010s
6
Cheyenne Van Tine (2011), Alex Carlson-Helo (2012), Imani Blackmon (2013), Starla Sampaco (2014), Aly Williams (2017), Summer Keffeler (2018)
2020s
0
Washington, California, Nevada, Oregon
