On June 5, Ayanna Hensley of Dodge City, Kansas, a 2022 graduate of Fort Hays State University majoring in Biology with a minor in English, was crowned Miss Kansas 2022. This involvement and accomplishment resulted in Ayanna being awarded nearly $15,000 in cash scholarships through the Miss Kansas competitions to apply toward her education.
As Miss Kansas, Ayanna will make over 400 appearances during her year-of-service, many of them motivational presentations to students in Kansas schools. Ayanna’s social impact initiative is ACEs Low: Overcoming Adverse Childhood Experiences. Her focus for this initiative is to help promote an ideology centered on assisting youth ‘digest’ and overcome their adversity. Most traumatic situations a child faces will correlate to lifelong problems. As an individual directly affected by severe trauma, Ayanna knows what a child needs to overcome their realities and to break their generational cycles.
Throughout her year-of-service, Ayanna will work to connect her social impact initiative with the Miss America and Miss Kansas Organizations. She will serve as an ambassador, representing the organization across the State of Kansas.
Ayanna will represent Kansas at the 2022 Miss America Competition at the Mohegan Sun Resort in Uncasville, Connecticut, later this year. She will perform a modern dance for her talent and compete with 50 other young women from across the nation for the title of Miss America 2023.
Miss Kansas travels throughout the state working closely with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas, and with the Kansas Department of Transportation – Traffic Safety Office providing education, establishing relationships, and learning more about individuals of all ages for whom she will advocate during her year as Miss Kansas.
The Miss Kansas Organization is a state licensee of the Miss America Organization, one of the nation’s leading achievement programs and the worlds’ largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women. The Miss Kansas Scholarship Foundation, a 501(c) (3) organization, makes available academic, community service, and other scholarships to women between the ages of 18 and 26. Annually, the Miss Kansas Organization provides over $6,000,000 in cash and in-kind scholarship assistance.
For information on booking Miss Kansas for your event, please email bookings@misskansas.org. You can follow Ayanna on social media @missamericaks on Facebook and Instagram.