Kalispell's West makes bid for Miss America

Over the last few days, Kacie West has strutted her stuff in a swimsuit, discussed how to prevent underage drinking and belted out a song from “Funny Girl.”

The Kalispell native and 2007 Flathead High School graduate is in Las Vegas at the Miss America Pageant. She has been competing in preliminary events, including evening gown, swimsuit, talent and on-stage interview, since Tuesday.

The live show will be broadcast on KTMF (ABC) at 8 p.m. today.

The first preliminary events, lifestyle and fitness in swimsuit and evening gown, took place Tuesday.

According to a press release from Jan Holden, president of the Miss Montana Scholarship Program, West “wowed the audience with her confidence and physical fitness in a black two-piece bikini swimsuit” and later “showed great poise and elegance ... in a flowing royal blue gown designed and donated by Gregory Ellenburg from South Carolina.”

Those events account for 40 percent of West’s total preliminary score, Holden said.

West was interviewed for a video blog on the Miss Montana website shortly after the evening’s competition was over.

“I can eat dessert now! I’m so excited,” West says on the video.

The talent competition took place Wednesday evening. West sang “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” the same song she performed when she won the Miss Montana crown in Glendive in June.

“I’ve been looking forward to that for months,” West says on Wednesday’s video blog. “This is my favorite night. This is what I’ve been waiting for.”

The talent competition makes up 30 percent of West’s preliminary score.

“I believe that Kacie has received high scores over the last two nights of competition,” Holden said in a press release. “People that I don’t even know have stopped me in the halls and told me that Miss Montana has been racking up the points. This could be Miss Montana’s year.”

In an interview with the Inter Lake in June, West said she hoped to be one of the top contenders at the pageant.

“It’s been a long time since Montana has been in the top 10. Hopefully we can break that trend,” she said then.

West answered an on-stage question about her platform, preventing underage drinking, on Thursday evening. As a resident adviser at Montana State University, where she has completed her junior year, West has seen the effects of drinking firsthand.

West has taken the year off from school to perfect her pageant skills and to make appearances across the state. She eventually plans to return to school to finish her degree in elementary education with a science option.

For more information or to access the video blog, visit www.missmontana.com.