Empowerment with Elizabeth · Elizabeth Swindell

Miss Kansas Volunteer 2026- Alayna Wilson

October 9, 2025·26 min·2 clips

After being first runner-up four times, Elena explains how she finally won Miss Kansas Volunteer by focusing on making her younger self proud.

Elena begins with bare feet and farm cats. She grew up outside Columbus, Nebraska, where pageants felt like something meant for someone else. The crown still sounds a little unreal to her. Two and a half weeks after being named Miss Kansas Volunteer, she is already thinking about Miss Volunteer America and the preparation ahead. Kansas first came through school. She arrived for a master's program, found a home in speech pathology, and is now in her third year of a PhD program. The conversation leaves room for the person behind the title: the work, the adjustment, and the identity shift that comes with it. Trevor's diagnosis changes the whole temperature of the episode. Elena remembers being a college sophomore when she heard her athletic friend had childhood cancer, and how hard it was to make that news feel real. Not even a year later, he was gone. She talks about grief showing up while undergraduate life still looked busy and bright from the outside, full of friends, leadership, sorority life, and plans. Service gave that grief somewhere to move. Giving time, talents, and treasures to childhood cancer research organizations became a way to handle confusion and anger without pretending they disappeared. Her serve initiative grows out of that. Giving back and moving forward, for her, means using painful experiences for work that still matters. The idea stays plainspoken. Even one volunteer event can help someone feel less helpless in the face of a bigger problem. Near the end, Elena turns back to competition prep. Knowing what you stand for, she says, shapes the marketing, branding, community service initiative, gown choice, and styling. That kind of confidence helps when things go sideways. If a contestant knows who she is, the unexpected parts have less room to rattle her.

As heard by us

A grounded pageant interview about grief, service, and learning to stand in her own story.

This episode follows a Miss Kansas Volunteer titleholder from a Nebraska upbringing to preparation for Miss Volunteer America, and it lands best when it moves past pageant polish into the experiences that shaped her.

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Why you'd press play

Hear how a new state titleholder turns grief into purpose.

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