Denise Colborn knows how to prepare a contestant to win a crown. She coached her daughter Hailee all the way to the title of Miss Teen USA, helped another client earn a national title this year and has seen two contestants from her Wichita pageant become Miss Kansas Teen USA.
But winning begins with something she wants every contestant to develop: confidence.
“I’m not training you just for a pageant,” Colborn said. “I’m training you for life.”
Opportunity and Diversity on the Stage
That philosophy guides Miss ICT, the local competition she founded in 2021, and her work as a pageant consultant preparing contestants for state and national stages. As a Black woman in the industry, she also works to expand diversity and help contestants of color succeed.
The sixth annual Miss ICT pageant, Nov. 7–8 at Wichita State University’s Duerksen Fine Arts Center, will crown its 2027 Miss and Teen winners. Sixteen Miss contestants and 12 teens are competing.
Current titleholders are Kiara Whyte, Miss ICT 2026, and Breece Baxter, Miss ICT Teen. Dia Kearney, who originally won the ICT Teen crown, advanced to become Miss Kansas Teen USA.
Colborn’s involvement began long before she became a director or coach. A Wichita South High graduate, she started competing in pageants around age 12. With little family money for competitions, she approached businesses to raise support.
She didn’t win, but the experience broadened her world and strengthened her self-esteem.
When her daughter, Hailey expressed interest in competing, she stepped in, coaching her all the way to the 2018 Miss Teen USA national title.
That experience helped lay the foundation for Colborn’s consulting work. This year, another of her clients, Kansas City-area Aspen Dean, won the 2026 Miss Junior All American national title.
Colborn launched Miss ICT after Kansas’ USA pageant director challenged her to organize a local competition. An independent program primarily feeding into the Miss USA system, it offers preparation and financial help for contestants advancing to the Kansas state competition. Miss USA’s national winner goes on to Miss Universe.
Colborn says Miss ICT is Kansas’ only local pageant offering this route into the USA system, with the Miss Kansas USA — unlike the Miss Kansas America pageant — not requiring competitors to advance to state via a local pageant.
A Diverse, Welcoming Environment
For Colborn, creating a diverse, welcoming environment has been intentional, from recruiting contestants to selecting judges.
“Representation matters,” she said.
She remembers the limited diversity Hailey encountered in her rise to a national title. Her own program emphasizes belonging and mutual encouragement.
“We are community. It’s a sisterhood,” she said. “They encourage one another. They support one another.”
National Coaching Successes and Devoted Volunteers
About 30 volunteers return year after year to produce the pageant and help with the training sessions leading up to it. Everyone, including Colborn, volunteers. Money raised goes back into production, prizes and contestant support.
It’s also a family affair. Colborn’s husband is all in with the pageant. Among his many roles, and overall support for Denise, we found him recently serving as an panelists on a mock interview panel for contestants.
Denise Hightower, Nicole Zinn and Nolan Jones, who also served as practice panelists, have been volunteers with the contest since its beginning. They say they’ve watched some of the contestants grow from teens into Miss competitors and the interviews reveal their growing confidence and concern for their communities.
“These are some great young ladies. Our contestants are concerned about the future of the world. It gives you hope,” Hightower said.
In addition to the mock interviews, preparation includes workshops and optional walking sessions. For pageant winners, the program covers its Miss and Teen winners’ state-pageant expenses and provides partial assistance to other top-five finishers.
New this year, an essay competition will award a $1,000 Melanie McCray-Miller scholarship in each division, separately from the pageant crowns.
McCray-Miller, a mentor to Colborn who died earlier this year, judged the first pageant and continued as a pageant volunteer supporting the judges’ work afterward. Her family will present the awards.
For Colborn and her volunteers, those investments serve a shared purpose: helping contestants recognize their possibilities and carry that confidence beyond the stage.
