Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, proudly brought to you by Crockett Sceptic
for this July 28th, 2025, every host James here.
We're joined right now by Miss Chexlovaketson, Maya Hernandez.
Maya, good to have you with us.
Hi guys, thank you.
I appreciate you being here with us, Maya, and first off, right off the gate, want to
say congratulations, that this is awesome, I can't wait to talk more about this festival
and this pageant with you, how has your summer been?
My summer has been really good, I'm getting ready to go to college soon here.
I had just recently taken trips to Spain as well for a week, so I've been a little bit busy
since being crowned, I've been able to make it to some events, so I'm really glad.
That's kind of wild actually, I don't know that much about Spain, I've been doing a little
more homework recently and everything, it's just beautiful over there, I feel like there's
so much I missed out that I haven't read about before.
Yeah, definitely, it's some, every once you go, once.
We could talk for hours about that, I'm sure, but let's go ahead and focus in because not
only do we have you here with us to talk about this, but I think we have an opportunity
to talk about something that maybe not everybody knows about.
You've joined us before, we've talked about other pageants and certainly popular in our
area and that, but let's dive into this one first, real quick, the Miss Chexlovakets
U.S. pageant, so I mentioned that, or we've talked about this and I think other people
have known, noticed that this is a festival and a pageant, so this is a fun festival, let's
talk on that real quick, the festival, where's it take place and know when is it going on?
The festival takes place in Phillips, Wisconsin June 21st through the 22nd of this year, that's
when the dates were this year, and it's a two day event, and there's vendors and food,
Kalachi eating contest going on, we have live music during the day when the pageant isn't
going on and we have dancers as well, that perform for the audience in front of us, and real
celebration of the cultures, really embracing, really a chance to kind of bring awareness
and attention along with information and knowledge, and just, it looks like so much fun.
I'm just over the weekend, we're doing a little homework for the interview and watching
some of the pageantry and some of the cool stuff that's a part of this, it looks like
a blast.
Yeah, it really is, and everyone, they always say, because it takes place in Phillips, Wisconsin,
which is a pretty small town, they say, during that weekend, everyone is check and slow
walk, because everybody celebrates the check and slow walk heritage, because that's what
we're there for, whether it's through dancing, the singing, we're eating the food.
Yes, yes, I do, never want to skip past the food, great food.
This is something, too, where everybody, if you weren't able to attend this year's, I
say make plans for next year, now is a perfect time to start doing that and making those
plans and be a part of this event.
While the event itself is such a fun, good time, also one of the touch on the pageant,
of course, which you were just recently crowned, would you mind if we rewind a little bit first,
how did you hear about this, how did you become a part of it?
So how I heard about this pageant is, ever since I was a little girl, I was competing
in the little sister program, which is now the little sibling program, and I would go
up there every year, and I would be paired with an older sister, which would be me now,
and I would go out there, have fun, just kind of tag along with my older sister all day.
So I was doing that for a few years, so that is the little siblings program.
And then from ages 13 to 17, there is the Queen's Royal Court.
I was never part of the Queen's Royal Court, but now that I was 17, because last year
I was Miss Chexlovak, Wisconsin State Princess, first princess.
I had the opportunity to choose between whether being on the court or being contestant.
So I chose contestant, and that's when I was crowned princess at 17.
And now coming back here, I tried out again, and now I am Queen, which I'm very grateful
for.
Yeah, yeah.
And again, congratulations to you on it.
And thank you for bringing that down for us.
So as far as the competition goes, how did that feel?
How did that go?
What is involved in that?
It was great.
There are four phases of competition.
There's a 10 minute private interview with the judges.
And then you have Croy modeling.
And then you have three onstage questions, one, they are mostly altered to you because
they do look at your application, and you will pull from a fish bowl, and they'll read
it out to you.
And then they answer the question.
That seems a little different than normally, but no repagions, wow, interesting.
Because what we wear is called Croy.
So the Croy has to be altered to you in the country that your region comes from.
So I come from the Chanchine region of Czechoslovakia, or Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
And they asked me, like, maybe where did I get my Croy, or what does the Croy mean to
you?
Have you done anything to alter the Croy in your own way?
Different questions along the lines.
It can be almost anything.
So that's one of the bigger questions, because they want to know, like, what do you know
about your culture and your heritage?
Yeah.
You know, I think especially, and I've brought this up even with you before, but especially
with our local pageants and stuff, as somebody growing up, I didn't know, you know, anything
really about pageants or that much.
And I think, like, a lot of people out there, I assumed, you know, that, well, it comes
down to this or it comes down to that when it comes to these things or something, and
each one of them are certainly different.
But when it comes to, like, the promoting of young people, or they're helping of young
people and stuff, that's a consistent thing throughout pageants.
And it's really cool to hear that about this one, in particular, where even if you've
done your homework, chances are you're listening to another contestant, you might learn something
about a different region or a different part of the culture, which is kind of a great way
of teaching without teaching, you know, and really sharing of information without overly
sharing it or something.
That part is really cool.
I love the questionnaire part of this.
I mean, you were used to, you're probably even used to, the one question, and prepping
for that, was it more stressful or more fun that way?
I will be 100% honest, it is a little more stressful because we have one croit question,
we have one question that's altered from our application that we bring to them.
And then the last question is a history question about the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
So one of the questions would be, when is the development, when did the development divorce
happen?
Right.
Wow.
And I have to remember, they do help us in the beginning, our pageant director.
She helps us with the question saying, like, these are the questions that probably will
be asked and that you should probably study.
Yeah.
I'm thankful for that.
Yeah.
Shout out to all of them.
Appreciate all the help with those.
Yeah.
Really cool.
So with all of that said, I imagine, you know, there are plenty of things that you might
have known just growing up and learning from your family and stuff, but doing some homework
and some of that, did you, if I come across, enjoy that part of it, enjoy the learning
part of this?
I really did.
I made a quizlet for the questions.
Nice.
I just mixed and matched them and played the games and it was fine.
It was great.
Yeah, very cool.
Very cool.
And I love situations like this where I, and congratulations to you again for winning and
we're really proud of you.
I'm really happy for you and rooting for you, but you really can't lose in a situation
like this where you come into it with all of that.
You're in the camaraderie that you and the contestants have.
That's always noteworthy too, making friends and everything.
Do you have fun doing that?
Yeah, it was great and I love my little siblings and with the Queen's World Corps, I have a
girlfriend on there and we're great.
We just hang out all weekend and I think she's supposed to come down this summer.
So it's also about making those friendships as well.
You know, and I know I've brought this up before and I will end it till the end of time.
We don't have enough things where we have opportunities for young women supporting young
women, making new friends, having those situations more and more in our society and giving
more an opportunity for that and supporting those kind of things.
It's a great time and a great cause for that regard and certainly the festival is fun.
The sharing of culture is a great time too.
There is also the scholarships and how impactful that is and I'd like to think no matter who's
out there listening or how you feel about pageantry, the scholarship part brings us all together.
We all agree on that and that's a great opportunity not only for young people but for us as a society
that feel like, hey, we're supporting the future here.
There's nothing better we can invest in whether it's our time or our dollars and cents than
the future and in pageantry is like this to award scholarships.
So that part is certainly noteworthy, right?
100% I got scholarship dollars last year as well being first princess and with the talent,
we forgot to talk about the talent I forgot, but no worries.
I got you go in the direction of sorry.
No worries.
I was a singer this year and I sang Ayavaka Devochka, which is a song and slow rock that
I sang.
So I had won the talent last year but I also had brought that talent back again this year
and I won the talent portion.
So there was a lot of scholarship dollars added on top of that when I did win and I'm
very grateful.
A lot of people don't get those opportunities and a lot of people maybe they do do pageants
but they don't continue with them and I really encourage people or women to continue
with those pageants to get those scholarship dollars.
I feel like everyone deserves an education and a right to go to college.
Well said.
And I appreciate you noting that and also incredible pronunciation, very well done with the accent
everything right there.
Like I can see why I get crowned you.
I didn't give it to you alone off of that.
Since being crowned, what's that been like, what have you been up to?
So I've done a few events this year.
I've done a few parades.
The Vesper Day Parades, the Fourth of July Parade in Pittsville.
I was just over at an event in Milwaukee yesterday at the Croatian Park and it was like Polish,
sorry, not Polish, the Croatian Park and there was dancers.
I just made an appearance.
I was there just checking it out and it was great.
Again, my parents also set up a vendor down there.
So I was just down there all day talking to people, making connections, eating good food.
Haluśki was great down there and I can't wait to go back.
Very cool.
Very cool.
And throughout all of this too, the audience isn't even going to have to be in the room
with us.
They can tell the energy, the excitement you have and how much you're the pride you have
in this.
We're really proud of you and proud for you about it.
It's great.
Do you have anything coming up?
One of the teas and let the audience know about.
So next week I am going to Wilbur Nebraska.
I am going to watch Nationals and yes, that is where Nationals takes place.
And right now our national queen is Trinity Pesco and she is from Wisconsin.
So we are representing twice by the USA queen in the V.
And then our queen from last year, Megan, she is going to compete this year to try to
win the USA title.
So I'm just getting my feet wet and going down there to watch the national page of
to see what to expect next year.
Which yeah, which is great experience for that and great way of chance to take some
notes in your head and everything when it comes to that.
But also going to be a fun event just to take in and support her and we are cheering
her on as well, Megan and rooting for her and we'll be keeping an eye on that.
You guys will have to come back and let us know how it went and everything and I have
no doubt you're not only going to have a good time but going to do great things.
I enjoy every time you come in Maya.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us today and congratulations again, good luck
with everything.
Let us know if you need help moving.
Okay.
It's a big project.
I've moved a lot in my life.
I know.
I'm sorry.
You know what it's like.
You're very early in the morning at 8 a.m.
Thank you for the time, Maya.
We appreciate you.
Of course.
Thank you.
Congratulations again.
And congratulations to all your friends and family and everybody that helped you get
here too.
I should mention as well.
It takes everybody.
So.
It does.
Thank you.
And one for joining us for another edition of WFHR's Rapid Support, probably brought
to you by Crocatseptic here at WFHR.com.
