Kalispell's Mady Rigg competes in Miss USA on Friday night
Miss Montana USA 2023 and Kalispell native Mady Rigg on Friday, May 26. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
Kalispell resident Mady Rigg competes in the 2023 Miss USA Pageant in Reno, Nevada on Friday, Sept. 29.
Rigg, 27, will represent the Treasure State after earning the Miss Montana crown in Lewistown on May 7.
The 72nd Miss USA pageant will be televised live on the CW channel at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The event takes place at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino and features contestants from every state and the District of Columbia. The winner will go on to represent the U.S. at the Miss Universe 2023 competition at the end of the year.
Rigg is a Flathead Valley native and works as a marketing manager for the Glacier Institute. She studied communication at Eastern Washington University and graduated in 2019.
In a previous interview with the Inter Lake, Rigg said her foray into pageantry was atypical.
“I didn’t know how to do my makeup or curl my hair or any other pageant stuff,” she said about entering her first pageant, the Miss Montana Teen USA in 2013.
“I was nervous, but I also have this belief that I can wing things and go for it,” Rigg recalled. “I kinda just went for it.”
She was crowned Miss Montana Teen USA in 2014.
At the Miss Montana Pageant this year she won honors for spirit and congeniality.
In Reno, contestants will compete in swimsuits and evening-gowns and take part in an interview.
A "people's choice" vote will be held during the contest, which guarantees the winner a spot as a semi-finalist. Votes can be cast online at missusa.com/peoples-choice/
Talk show hosts Keltie Knight of "Entertainment Tonight" and Adrienne Bailon-Houghton of "E!News" will host the pageant.
The judges this year are Albanian-American model Emina Cunmulaj, American fashion designer Nicole Miller, actress Vivica A. Fox, who was a judge on the talent show "The Starlet", and makeup artist Patrick Starr.