Cranbrook’s Kyrie Jackson is currently in Toronto competing in the Miss Teenage Canada competition, which runs from July 19 to 26.
You can sign up and vote for your favourite contestant, so Kyrie is hoping to rally support from her hometown prior to the final days of the pageant — voting ends Thursday, July 24 at midnight. The voting involves a simple sign-up using your email address, name and age to the VIP Club.
Kyrie, 18, wrote a quick message between activities saying she was enjoying her time on the other side of the country.
“It’s been a really fun experience,” Kyrie said. “We don’t really have a lot of time to sleep because we are always busy doing stuff. But so far we have been on Breakfast TV Toronto, Global Toronto and Global National. All the girls are very accepting and kind so I’m making lots of new friends from all over Canada.”
Kyrie’s mom, Judy Jackson, noted that links to those videos can be found on Kyrie’s Facebook page, Kyrie J-Miss Teenage Kootenays2014.
“On Monday she was on Breakfast TV and Tuesday morning she was on Global TV,” Judy said. “The links to those are on her Facebook page. They are supposed to be on MTV today or tomorrow.”
Judy explained that the girls have three event nights.
“They have a preliminary, where they do a swimsuit competition and they do some interviews and things like that,” she said. “Then on Friday they have a talent portion. Not every girl has to do a talent, it’s completely up to the individual, but the rest can come and watch.”
The pageant then moves to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Saturday for the full gala, which will be televised on the Miss Teenage Canada website.
“That’s where they have the main announcement and they wear the evening gown and that kind of stuff,” Judy said.
There are 60 girls who have gone through to the end.
Kyrie was named Miss Teenage Kootenays at provincials. There were 10 girls from B.C. provincials that progressed to nationals. Others joined them in Toronto from Alberta, Saskatchewan and other provinces.
“It’s quite a cool event,” Judy said. “The Miss Teenage Canada pageant is more focused on the person, rather than how you look and how you present yourself. It’s more about what you’re doing for your community and what you are doing to support different charities and events and that sort of thing.”
Kyrie managed to raise the most funds out of the B.C. competitors, for her charity Cardiac Kids, which was around $1,200.
For the Toronto leg of the competition she again raised around $1,200 for Free the Children charity.
To support Kyrie go to www.missteenagecanada.com and click VIP Club to sign up to vote.
You can also follow her on Twitter by searching @TeenKootenays14, and on her blog at www.missteenagekootenays.com.