There she is: Pageant another link to Czech, Slovak heritage

Each April for 27 years, a handful of young, single women with flowers in their hair have traveled to Montgomery, Minn., to vie for a little-known title: Miss Czech Slovak Minnesota.

For a few, entering the pageant is a chance to share the wealth of knowledge they've amassed about their heritage, which goes beyond donning kroj, or traditional folk dress, and eating kolachky, an Eastern European pastry that many recall their grandmothers baking. For others — some who weren't even aware they had Czech or Slovak ancestry — it's a reason to dig into their family tree.

In either case, contestants said, it's a way to connect to the larger Czech and Slovak community, particularly with older members in the Montgomery-Lonsdale-New Prague area who may still speak Czech.

"It's a heritage pageant, so it is more education for our contestants," said Lorraine David, a board member who brought the pageant to Minnesota in 1989. "It's a great opportunity for them to represent Minnesota for a year."

This year's queen, Alexa Turgeon of Lonsdale, who was crowned April 9, will head to Wilber, Neb. — the official Czech capital of the U.S. — in August to compete in the national pageant with other women who won one of nine state pageants in the Midwest and Texas. They're judged on their performance of a talent, two interviews and modeling their kroj (pronounced "kroy"). State and national winners get cash prizes and scholarship money.

"I really wanted to run to have the opportunity to learn more about the Czech and Slovak cultures and about my own family history," Turgeon said. "And have the opportunity and the excuse to kind of bring some of that tradition back into my family."

Turgeon, 21, memorized and recited a traditional folk tale for her talent, while competitors Madison Jerde and Autumn Gare sang songs at least partly in Czech.

For every contestant who is trying on her colorful kroj for the first time, there's one like last year's Minnesota queen, Elizabeth Kaliska: involved in ethnic pageantry since age 7, a state winner in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, in touch with Slovak relatives, a traveler to Central Europe.

Pageant participation improved her public speaking skills and created a sense of community when she moved to Minnesota last year for work, she said.

Unlike many contestants, Kaliska knows a lot about present-day Slovakia. Last year's national queen tried to encourage candidates to not only focus on the past, but to learn about the region today, Kaliska said.

"I think a lot of it, especially in the Midwest, is a very nostalgic interest in the culture," she said. "Once [national contestants] become part of the organization and the pageant, everything is kind of thrown together — they need to know current events, they need to know historical events."

Turgeon and Kaliska both said they believe pageants are still relevant in 2016.

It's still hard for women to become leaders, and pageants can help develop those skills, Kaliska said.

Miss Czech Slovak isn't a beauty pageant, and "beauty isn't necessarily an overriding qualification" for winning, said Marit Lee Kucera, an honorary consul to the Czech Republic and pageant judge in several states.

It's "a wonderful vehicle for promoting the heritage," Kucera said.