Huhman preps for national pageant in Orlando this Nov.
It was a moment young Makenna Huhman of Giltner will never forget. That moment was when the 9-year-old was announced the as the winner of the 2024 Miss Nebraska Junior Pre-Teen pageant earning her the right to compete with girls across the U.S. for the national crown.
The Doniphan fourth grader has only been competing in the pageant for three years, but has been attending pageants since she was six weeks old, according to her mother, Stephanie Barthel.
“My oldest daughter (Taylor) competed for six years,” Barthel said. “I think about the time she decided that she was done, Makenna started.”
Huhman was one of 11 girls to compete in the Miss Nebraska pageant this year in Omaha and throughout the four-day competition, contestants participated in events which promote confidence and help them develop life skills.
“One is an interview where we get to talk to each of the judges for one minute,” she explained. “They ask us questions about the pageant and ourselves and we get to answer them back.”
The contestants also had to introduce themselves in front of an audience and also shared what they want to be when they grow up.
“I want to be a herpetologist,” Huhman stated. “They’re someone who studies reptiles in the wild or in a zoo.”
Huhman also competed in the pageant’s art contest in which she later was declared the winner. Reptiles also found their way into her artwork. She said her fascination with reptiles extends to her love of dragons, which she draws based on her favorite book series, “Wings of Fire.”
“We needed to draw four things that described ourselves,” she said. “One of the drawings I did was like a little dragon in a cave and (there was) a door I shaded in lightly. Then there was a dragon inside looking at a blood red egg and that is very unusual. Only mudwings have blood red eggs.”
Huhman was also announced as this year’s Miss Personality, which was voted on by her fellow contestants.
“It’s really fun because you get to make a lot of new friends,” Huhman said. “When we were waiting do our turn (during the competition) I had to sit by a lot of them.”
Barthel said the pageant also works to instill in its contestants the importance of community service.
“They do it by an honor system kind of thing,” Barthel explained. “So any at any point in time during the year we go pick up a couple of school supplies and go drop them off wherever (she) wanted to, and that was for the Orphan Grain Train. The competition is community involvement so they can pick whatever, whether Big Brothers/Big Sisters (in Lincoln) or any type of charity or nonprofit that they want to donate something to.”
Huhman collected school supplies to help the nonprofit’s goal of delivering essential items to needy people around the globe.
“They were happy because we also took tons of bags of clothes and stuff that we don’t use anymore,” Huhman commented.
The most nerve wracking part of the contest for Huhman was waiting to hear the final results of the pageant announced.
“The whole final show took about an hour and 45 minutes and they wouldn’t announce the queen until the very, very end, so we had to stand there that whole time,” Barthel said.
Since one of the girls in the competition was a previous winner of the Miss Nebraska Junior Pre-Teen pageant, hearing her name announced as the winner was an exciting surprise for Huhman.
“I was shocked with disbelief for the next few days,” Huhman said. “I’m still shocked today.”
Her family and others were also overwhelmed by the victory.
“I started crying and her pageant coach started crying,” Barthel commented. “We knew she did well, we just weren’t 100 percent sure it was first place. Now (she gets) to go on to Nationals in Orlando to represent Nebraska.”
Huhman will be traveling to Florida alongside her mom and two sisters to compete during the Thanksgiving break in November.
“It’s going to be on a much bigger scale,” Barthel stated. “They run two competitions at the same time. National American Miss is for all of the state queens and the All-American Miss is for the first four runner ups and the people who won some of the premium optional contests like talent, casual wear modeling, that kind of stuff. It’s all at the same hotel and they run things all back-to-back, so there’s going to be way more people there and a lot more stuff going on. I think each age group has seven days worth of activities going on.”
“The pageant really promotes volunteering and giving back to your community,” Barthel stated. “So she has been all over the last four months or so. She has volunteered at the Giltner Fire Department chili cook-off, helping them clean up at the Trumbull Fire Department, the pancake feed at the Hastings Fire Department for their annual fundraiser.”
Having relatives who serve in the Trumball Fire Department, Huhman commented that she loves firefighters for their funny personalities and she respects them for the service they do for their communities.
As they for the competition in Orlando, Huhman’s family has been seeking sponsorships to cover costs for travel, contest fees and their lodging.
“A couple of people here in town have already given her some money for sponsorship,” Barthel commented. “There’s the flight, the hotel, she needs certain outfits, the optional entry fees and there’s an activity day where we don’t have pageant stuff going on and they just send you off into Orlando to do go do activities, but we have to pay for most of that ourselves.”
Both Barthel and Huhman expressed their thanks to the community for being supportive and helping Huhman to prepare for the competitions later this year.
As the reigning queen Huhman will attend the 2025 Nebraska pageant to assist next year’s contest.
“She’ll be there for everything,” Barthel stated. “Helping girls out in all of the competitions, letting people know where they need to be and then at the final show, she’ll be passing her crown on to the next queen and then she can compete again the year after that as long as she has moved up to a different age group.”
Huhman said she appreciated being able to make friends through the pageant and is looking forward to making some more at nationals.