Miss Tri-Cities is off to WA state competition. She held the title for 2 years

The one thing Miss Tri-Cities McKenzie Kennedy was most passionate about growing up is the one thing she couldn’t do on her own.

“I’m from a single-parent household. We didn’t have a whole lot of money,” she told the Herald. “Theater was too expensive so I didn’t have access to it until upper middle school.”

The Kennewick woman now is campaigning to give other children the chance that she didn’t have at a very young age.

As Kennedy heads into the Miss Washington competition July 2-3, she’s keeping her focus on the core of her platform — that children of all ages should have access to all forms of art whether it be painting or drama.

Kennedy will be sharing her mission during one part of a four-part contest with 23 others women from around Washington for her chance to gain the state title at Little Creek Casino Resort in Shelton — just a day before her Fourth of July birthday.

“That would be one heck of a present right there,” she said.

Love of the arts

Kennedy said that her mom has always been fully supportive and encouraging, but there is only so much one parent can do when raising two kids alone.

Then during late middle school and high school drama was offered as an elective and she dove in.

Kennedy was in every production at Kamiakin High School until she graduated in 2013.

The 25-year-old went on to get an associate’s degree in acting and directing and continued performing in the Tri-Cities. She sits on the board of the Kennewick Arts Commission and served as the vice president for Richland Players.

But it was being crowned Miss Tri-Cities in 2019 is what allowed her to earn her bachelor’s debt free at Columbia Basin College. She graduated this month in project management and also previously earned an associate’s in business administration.

Kennedy said she learned of the huge effect the Miss Tri-Cities competition can have on someone’s life when a family member took her to a live event in 2014.

“I opened the program and saw all the scholarships,” she said. “I couldn’t not do it at that point — this program allowed me to afford me to finish school.”

She competed in the pageant for four years before earning the title. While she said she could have finished school without it — she loathes debt and has made choices all along to avoid debt for school including working as a paraeducator at an elementary school while also enrolled in CBC classes.

Kennedy also held the title an extra year because because the COVID pandemic canceled last year’s program.

“I was lucky one of few title holders who had a significant amount of time before the pandemic hit,” she said.

During the extended pandemic, she received financial donations from friends and family to buy supplies and assemble 1,000 craft kits.

She donate the kits to children in schools and to after-school programs, including Westgate Elementary School in Kennewick.

The kits were filled with things like paper for card-making, glue, sequins, paint and stencils.

“I’ve always been a very crafty person and obsessed with arts,” she said.