City of Wisconsin Rapids Community Development

Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this Monday, October 7th, 2024.

Have your host James here with you and right now we are going to be joined by some wonderful

individuals.

We are here to celebrate the Miss Wisconsin Rapids and Miss Wisconsin Rapids teen competition

coming up.

We have some of the contestants with us, we'll have some other contestants joining us later

in the week as well.

We're looking forward to that.

But for now, I'll have you all introduce yourselves, we'll just go right down the line

here if you don't mind.

I'm Reese Cook.

Hi, I'm Aliyah Zinski.

Hi, I'm Devin Carter.

Hi, I'm Isabelle St Meyers.

Hi, I'm McKenna Cornett.

Oh, thank you all.

Great job.

You're already knocking it out the park.

Already did a great job.

Every one of you.

You were well said.

You walked up the right one up to the mic.

Nicely job.

So let's get right into the bones of this, this competition and why you would do something

like this.

I always like to tell all the other contestants and I mentioned this all the time.

I have been acting since I was a kid.

I've played over 100 characters, I've been doing radio for 22 years.

I have never not gotten nervous.

Even before I turned on the mic after talking to all of you, I got a little nervous before

I hit the mic.

I always have a little bit of nerves in me.

And then when I think about something like this, I could never do what you guys are doing.

I could never do it.

I am so impressed, beyond impressed.

That's not a big enough word with what you all do and I really admire it.

But what got you to want to do this?

That's where I'd like to go first with our conversation.

So what got you to want to do this and start right in the end?

I saw this paper at the dance studio and I've been doing dance for years and I've been

on stage for years.

And so I thought what better opportunity to spread my CSI community service initiative

than to join pageant.

Very cool.

For me, I joined this pageant to spread awareness about Alzheimer's awareness.

Someone very dear to me has had it for about five or six years now and it's something

I really care about.

I've been a part of the princess program since I was very young and all of the misses

that I walked with have always encouraged me to join the pageant and that's what I did.

I've also gone a part of the princess program since I was little and the big girls really

I looked up to them and they were such great role models for me and it's great that now

I'm old enough to do that for someone else.

I have wanted to spread awareness about suicide awareness and prevention because my aunt had

dealt with depression and PTSD for a long time and ultimately took her life from it.

So I wanted to spread awareness on that as well as my friends really wanted me to do it

as well.

Great reasons all of you and all of you are very good at this and very good at like talking

on the microphone and everything.

Please don't be too good.

I need my job.

I need this job.

Please don't take my job from me.

Let's kick going.

Let's get into your talents.

What your talents will be for the competition.

So I'm going to be singing a song times like this and it's a very funny song but I can't

give away anything yet.

Oh nice.

The good tease nicely done.

All right.

I'm going to be singing when will my life begin from the movie Tangled.

It's something I've actually done before in my elementary school talent show and it's

a really fun song with a lot of theatrics to it.

I will be performing a hip hop remix dance and I've been doing dance for such a long time

and I'm very excited because it features some of my gymnastics passes.

I will be doing a lyrical piece to you say by Lauren Dagel and I've been doing dance

since I was three and so it's just a big part of my life.

Dance has also been a very big part of my life so I am doing a contemporary jazz dance

to I am here by pink.

Oh very cool.

You know you guys have got some great talent right there that is going to really be entertaining

for the audience and really be a lot of fun.

I imagine to perform on stage as well.

That's going to be great.

You mentioned a couple of you did at least.

You're CSI and I have to say the contestants over the years been doing this for a long time

and every time we bring people on and I love to ask why you did this.

So many individuals answer with well my CSI this or something about their CSI brought

them to want to do this to bring attention to a subject and for you know for anybody

to do that I admire it.

For young people to do that with all the things on your plate and all the things you

have going on in your heads and hearts and everything I cannot tell you how much I admire

that and how important that is going forward.

It gives us a lot of us older people a lot of hope in the future a lot of a good faith

in it and everything that's very cool to see.

To just bring kind of put it under the spotlight a little bit here let's go into what

your CSIs are.

My CSI is take action for tomorrow's health.

It's about the dangers of vaping and the continues.

And why is that one important to you?

I've been on the fact youth board and for the state and it's a fun experience where

we get to do presentations and talk to the community about all the dangers.

And last year I did a presentation for the eighth graders which is really fun because

we got to play games and they got to learn a lot about it.

Very cool.

Thank you.

My CSI is spreading awareness through harmony.

It is about Alzheimer's awareness.

This is really special to me, my grandma.

She has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's for about five or six years now and it's something

that we've always struggled with as a family and her herself and I just really want to spread

awareness with it and show people that they're not alone in this.

My CSI is unity in motion addressing the physical and mental benefits of being in a group.

I find this very important to me because I've been in sports my whole life and I find it

very important to just stay active to become more physically mentally healthy.

My CSI is bringing food to every table, raising awareness on food insecurity and this is

important to me because food is kind of my safety now.

I love food so much and I think that everyone should have the opportunity to be able to

have the resources of food.

My community service initiative is a wait list that can't wait to suicide awareness

and prevention.

It is very close to me because of my aunt ultimately taking her life after having depression

and PTSD being in the military and it is a very overlooked topic that needs to be talked

about way more.

All of these are very important topics and really good ones for you guys to be bringing

some attention to and unfortunately in our society often times it needs to be kids bringing

attention to things for us to pay attention as adults.

When you guys bring attention to a subject it shakes us up a little bit like okay oh I

better be focusing on this I better be paying attention to this.

It goes a lot farther than I think you might realize at young people and it's one of the

things that took me a long time to realize is how big our voices can be no matter how

little we might seem physically and all of them are important ones when we're talking

about our youth and whether it's vaping nicotine if any of these things our society is

getting better about it but we got work to do it's great to see that you take an initiative

on that one.

The Alzheimer's dementia these are things that affected my life touch my life and certainly

many many of the listeners out there and any chance to bring attention to that one is

certainly noteworthy because we can't we can't slack off on that one when it comes

to our bodies speaking I'm not slacking off our bodies and everything how busy even at

your age as I imagine to do this man it don't get easier the older you get I'm 47 and

yeah keeping up on the health keeping a good routine keeping ourselves in shape so we're

there for our loved ones there for our responsibilities and everything's always a great topic and really

important one to be hitting on these are all really important things I did want to

touch on one of the thing though with this side of awareness because I appreciate that

and it also brings as segues into something else that almost everybody's topic are not

necessarily the easiest thing to jump into they tend to be heavier topics you guys are

are just kind of like organically getting into them and organically bringing them up and

you're already just in talking to me doing a great job of it so I want to and you know embolden

you and build up that confidence a little bit when you're getting on stage here because you're

not going to out the park here just with me let alone how you're going to do on stage nicely

done and thank you again for bringing attention to all of these subjects we are speaking with

some of the contestants from the Miss Wisconsin rabbits Miss Wisconsin rabbits teen competition

I want to get into something I kind of touched on right there a little bit in the rehearsal

process what is the rehearsal process been like how often do you guys rehearse and how you how

is it gone for you individually I'll just go down the line here a little bit so we've been meeting

every Sunday from 5 30 to 8 o'clock and the process is we do mock interviews and we do opening

number rehearsals which is a little dance that we do in the beginning we practice talent we do

all that fun stuff and have you been enjoying it I love doing all that the fitness part is kind of

weird because we have to do jumping jacks but it's fun a little like gym class a little ride to

that have you been enjoying that rehearsal yeah it is a lot of fun it's really fun to make new

friends connect with all the girls I mean these are just amazing people and I think it's a really

great experience overall like we said we go every Sunday for each time and it's just so fun and

we practice our opening number every day and it's just such a supportive and safe environment I've

had so much fun with our practices because the girls are so nice and I'm learning so many new

techniques and tricks that I need throughout my life along with what the other girls said

it is a very good sisterhood to be a part of and everybody's just uplifting everybody and it's

a really good environment to be in it sounds so supportive and so encouraging then that just with

the the teachers and the people that are helping you out it's certainly but the your your

fellow contestants and that it's one thing that I always I will bring up every time we do this we

do these interviews is the idea of you know you're getting some reps here you're getting some

repetitions even being on the air here with me you're getting some reps in you're getting a

opportunity to do some public speaking and and no matter what you guys do in life and you're

going to go all go on to do amazing things and I'm looking forward to seeing what each one of you

individually go on to do you're probably going to do something that involves public speaking you're

probably going to involve something that involves being out there in the public or at least

speaking to other people these are reps you're getting right now this is just reps and more help

for you to be able to have more confidence doing that going forward wherever you take your lives

and your passions so that part is really cool too that's already a win right there but the camaraderie

the the fellowship that exists and the opportunity to meet new people or hang out with more people

and talk with more people and something my mother always notes anytime she knows these interviews

are coming up the opportunity for women to support women we don't have enough of those in our

society here is one of those great ones that we have and it's great to see you guys all kind of

and you know embodying that and taking that in and enjoying that part of it that's very cool

and again these rehearsals that you're doing shouldn't be taken lightly by the public I mean

you guys taking the time out of your day to be able to do these things when I can't imagine how

busy your slates are already I admire that I really do it's it's very cool if you guys

to be doing that and the repetitions you're getting they're just going to help future you so much

you're going to really be appreciative of them I took I took a debate class in high school and

I am not the big guy you would not imagine especially me in high school you would never imagine

me doing that but I wanted to be an actor and I was told hey these this will probably help

there's almost no way I'm in this chair right now without some of those classes I took back

in junior high in high school and stuff these things really do add up and future you was going to

be very thankful for it it's very cool to see let's get into another thing that I like to do with

the guests that we have on here in the contestants all of you mentioned when we first started talking

why you'd started to do this and sometimes the answers oftentimes the answers have to do with

well somebody I knew did this or I saw somebody else doing it so now I'm going to kind of reverse

that and say a young individual comes up to you and asks hey I've thought about doing this page

and I this seems like a fun thing should I do this or what would you say to this person to encourage

them to do something like this you should do it because the girls are amazing the sisterhoods amazing

mega is amazing and everyone who helps you is just so good at their jobs and even the volunteers

for mock interview they know what they're doing they know that vice they're giving you and all

the feedback is great I mean when you do this you are gaining so many life skills that you need

for jobs in the future you're I mean we're in an interview right now this is definitely going to

help us in the future and I would tell them I help men do them with it too it is a lot of fun and

then just go for it honestly it helps build confidence and just all that this is such a fun experience

and there is really no judgment everybody is honestly supporting you and helping you to make

you the best you can be and it's definitely an experience worth trying this is such a great

experience because you're gaining amazing life skills and we're even getting scholarships out of

it and just the sisterhood and everything about it is so positive like the other girls said you just

gained so many new friends and you get the support and gain life skills and it's just a platform

that you can use to spread awareness on something that you really care about it's a really good

stuff I couldn't help but notice none of you brought up talking to me none of you no

did note some really good stuff much more important stuff there that is really encouraging and

really good to hear and I again I will mention this a number of times with the other contestants as

well but I really wanted to come home you guys have already won no matter what happens at this

competition you have already won you really really have I'm not saying that lightly like you really

have genuinely already won in this in this competition and taken from this competition something valuable

that is even more valuable than a crown you guys are already winners and I'm really really encouraged

by this when it comes to what you enjoy this is where we'll wrap up what is one of your favorite

parts of the of this whole pageant of the whole experience I like the competition day definitely

in the tech week because we all are we're super tired from all the stuff that we're doing and it's

just a great bonding experience because we're all trying to get through it and we're all doing it

all together I love the public speaking aspect of it I know a lot of people don't like to I have

always loved public speaking I love being able to connect with all these girls the sisterhood that

involves with it and just the many many great experiences that we've learned with this really the

entire pageant it by itself is super fun but honestly I think the talent part is the most fun because

my talent has been a huge part of my life forever and it's just very important to me so far I

really enjoyed getting to know the other girls and my host mom but my favorite thing had to be when

we learned how to do our fitness walk because it was not my strong suit and I really had to work

towards that but afterwards we got donuts so it was all okay my favorite part of it so far has

been gaining new friends with it just because you can really connect with the girls that you're here

with and I'm able to spread awareness on the topic that I've always wanted to spread awareness

about but I didn't know how to go about that and this definitely opened new doors for me to be

able to do that you guys knocked it out you guys did a great job in this interview today you're

all done great work by every one of you enjoy yourselves out there have fun out there break a leg

and we'll be talking with you again real soon and we'll be seeing you guys out there thank you so

much for the time each one of you thank you thank you be sure to save the date everybody the

Miss Wisconsin Rapids and Miss Wisconsin Rapids team competition comes up October 26th find out more

information at misswisconsinrapids.org misswisconsinrapids.org keep in mind that they have a dress rehearsal

the day before you can show up for that as well you can find out about this get tickets and much

much more at misswisconsinrapids.org misswisconsinrapids.org we got a great week lined up for you

of midday magazine guests tomorrow in part one at four o'clock we're going to be joined by a friend

promise from the heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce and in part two we're going to be talking

real estate with David Farmboro on Wednesday our family our good friends from family natural

foods to be with us steven and Katrina hitner in part one in a part two we're going to talk to the

gang overhead encourage on Thursday in part one at four o'clock Suzanne Campbell candidate for

Wisconsin assembly district 72 will be joining us in a part two UW extensions Jen McNally will be

with us and on Friday part one will be all reserved for the community bike ride and farmers market

we're going to talk to Hannah about that and in part two visit Wisconsin rabbits brings us the

Wisconsin rabbits area sports commission got a lot to talk about with them looking forward to a

wonderful week of midday magazine a big thank you to Pam Hilke and the scheduling she does on

this one reach out to us if you are an individual that would like to be on midday magazine or you

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