Pageant winner to vie for Miss Minnesota
Kaylah Dockter was crowned Miss Capital City last October
by Laura Adelmann
Thisweek Newspapers
Eastview High School graduate and Rosemount resident Kaylah Dockter, 20, never imagined her future would include wearing a tiara.
For her, singing started as a refuge from mean girls in eighth grade, a place where she could gain confidence, make real friends and find her own talents.
But when Kathy Shellum, pageant director of the Miss Twin Cities Pageant, heard Kaylah sing at a Voices of Hope benefit, she immediately saw another path. She felt the University of Minnesota junior’s operatic voice could eventually take her onto the stage of the Miss Minnesota Pageant.
To get there, Kaylah first had to earn the title of Miss Capital City.
“Kaylah is just so unbelievably good when she sings, she gives you goose bumps. My co-director Judy Register and I were both just in awe of her singing. She moved us when she sang,” Shellum said.
The invitation to enter the Miss Capital City Pageant came as a surprise to Kaylah, who had never considered entering such a contest.
“This is all foreign to me,” she said. “My family is into sports. My sisters play basketball, my brother plays golf, and I’m the weirdo who sings and apparently wins beauty contests.”
But once she agreed to do the pageant, she quickly established her platform: anti-bullying, and set out to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network.
“She just jumped into it with both feet. Who knew she was going to win?” said Kaylah’s mom, Rynelle Dockter.
The experience was a whole new world for Kaylah.
“It was amusing to be in a bathing suit, and weird to have people look at me emulate grace in an evening gown. … Singing was a piece of cake,” she said.
Shellum said talent is the biggest part of both contests, and predicted Kaylah would do very well competing for Miss Minnesota in June.
“Kaylah has grown so much since being crowned Miss Capital City,” Shellum said. “She has the best personality, she’s very outgoing and has an incredible talent. She’s going to do quite well at Miss Minnesota. She could win it.”
Preliminaries start June 17 with the crowning scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday, June 19, at the Eden Prairie High School auditorium.
Tickets are $40 and will be available at www.missminnesota.org.
Laura Adelmann is at laura.adelmann@ecm-inc.com.
