Miss Kansas Visits Campus

Published January 14, 2019

Miss Kansas Hannah Klaassen was on the Dodge City Community College campus Friday to meet college staff and thank the school and community for their continued support of the Miss Dodge City and Miss Kansas organization.The college offers in-kind scholarships for winners of the Miss Dodge City/Cowboy Capital/Boot Hill Scholarship Competition each year.Klaassen was joined by Miss Dodge City Paige Harding and Miss Boot Hill Emily Rugg, who were on hand to express their gratitude as well as discuss their social platforms.

“The scholarships provide encouragement and opportunity,” Klaassen said. “It’s so helpful to have colleges offering that.”Klaassen has promoted mental health awareness as Miss Kansas. She has been visiting elementary schools across the state and recently began an initiative aimed at putting suicide and crisis hotline numbers on the back of every school lunch card.Harding attends KU and her platform is ABCs of Alzheimer’s Disease, which afflicted her grandmother for nearly 10 years. She just founded an organization on campus called Purple Pals, where student volunteers participate in social activities with Alzheimer’s patients for a few hours each week.

Rugg’s platform is Fight Back!, an effort to build awareness about living with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Diagnosed with the disease at age 13, in March Rugg, who attends Oklahoma State, will be going to Washington, DC as an ambassador for the Arthritis Foundation, to advocate on Capitol Hill“These young ladies do a wonderful job representing important causes,” said DCCC President Dr. Harold Nolte. “I asked them a quick question about a difficult topic and they each gave such well-articulated and thoughtful responses. Dodge City Community College is proud to offer scholarship opportunities for sharp, impressive young people like this.”By Scott Edger