WORCESTER – The 76th annual Miss Massachusetts Scholarship Pageant is Friday, June 26 at 7 p.m. and Sunday June 28 at 3 p.m. at the beautifully restored Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts in Worcester. This is the seventh year that the pageant has taken place in Worcester, having previously been held in Fall River and New Bedford.
Competing this year will be Kensi Riley, 19, a life-long Westfield resident and a 2013 graduate of Westfield High School. She has danced for 15 years at Dancer’s Image in Westfield where she currently teaches dance, and she is a snowboard Instructor at the Blandford Ski Area.
The two-day pageant features Miss Massachusetts 2014 Lauren Kuhn of Boston, and 23 beautiful, intelligent and talented young women. They will compete for scholarship money and the opportunity to represent Massachusetts at the 95th Annual Miss America Pageant in September 2015. After eight years in Las Vegas, the pageant moved “home” to Atlantic City, NJ in 2013. As it has been for the past five years, the Miss America telecast will be broadcast on the ABC Television Network. Last year, at Miss Massachusetts and Miss America, Kuhn was the recipient of over $28,600 in scholarships. At Miss America, Kuhn, a classical pianist, finished as the fourth runner-up to Miss America Kira Kazantsev of New York. Since she began competing in the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen program as a high school sophomore, she has received over $50,000 in scholarship awards from the Miss America Organization at the local, state and national levels.
A 24-year-old resident of Boston, she is a 3rd Year Doctor of Dental Medicine student at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Lauren received her degree in Biology from Gonzaga University in 2013. She is a 2009 graduate of JM Weatherwax High School and is the daughter of Timothy and Dawn Kuhn of Aberdeen, Washington. She has spent her year of service traveling throughout the Commonwealth promoting her personal platform of The Opportunity of Education: Encouraging Today’s Young Women as well as the National Platform of the Miss America Organization – the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
Again this year at the state pageant, supporters may help select the Eleventh Finalist for Sunday’s show with the Online Voting. For a minimum vote of only $1.00, fans may visit the Miss Massachusetts website and cast their vote for the contestant of their choice who they would like to see as the eleventh finalist. Each dollar that is donated counts as one vote. Online voting is now taking place and will end at midnight on Friday, June 26. For more details, visit www.missmass.org and click on the Online Voting link.
Tickets are available for the Preliminary Show on Friday June 26; and for the Final Competition on Sunday June 28 and may be purchased online at www.thehanovertheatre.org or by calling the box office at 508-831-0800 or 1?877?571-SHOW (7469). For tickets to the 75th Anniversary Gala celebration, visit www.missmass.org.
