Odenbrett pours passion into claiming the crown

By: 
Jill Meier, Journal Editor

Submitted photo 

Brandon teen Olivia Odenbrett will represent South Dakota at the Miss America Outstanding Teen competition in Dallas, Texas next month.

 

Olivia Odenbrett was just a youngster when she watched her older sister, Sadie, compete in the Miss Minnesota Outstanding Teen competition. 

“I loved watching her on that stage,” Odenbrett says. “At that time, I mostly saw it as the ‘pretty crown’ and the ‘pretty sash.’”

Five years after her family relocated from Waseca, Minn., to Brandon, Odenbrett is now the one donning the ‘pretty crown’ and the ‘pretty sash.’

Last year, Odenbrett won the title of Miss Siouxland Outstanding Teen. In June, she was crowned Miss South Dakota Outstanding Teen. It’s a moment she won’t soon forget. 

“I felt so many emotions during that moment, and I’m so grateful for that,” says the Brandon 15-year-old. “You see little girls when you walk up to them, and they light up. That makes me happy because I love seeing the little girls look up to you and see you as a figure that they want to become when they are older. When I was putting on my crown and when I got the state titleholder I felt like I was on a fever dream. It was amazing.”

Odenbrett is one of 51 contestants next month who will be seeking the title of Miss America Outstanding Teen in Dallas, Texas. 

“I’m going into it not expecting a lot,” says Odenbrett, who will be a sophomore at Brandon Valley High School this fall. “Especially because you’re competing against 50 other girls that are the best in their state.”

Odenbrett, however, is the best in South Dakota. 

She dazzled judges with her talent, a lyrical contemporary dance solo. Odenbrett has been dancing since she was 3 years old and competing in dance since age 5. She danced to Bruno Major’s song, “On Our Own,” which was covered by BVHS alum Eric Darrington.

“I had so many compliments for just his song and I’m super-excited to bring it to the national stage and get his name out there because I want people to hear how amazing his voice is,” she shares. “It’s a beautiful solo, it’s a beautiful song.”

After finishing her talent performance at the state competition, Odenbrett said that’s when reality set in.

“This is becoming real. Someone is going to get crowned tonight and we don’t know who it is,” she reflected.

This year, the top five was not revealed, and Odenbrett said that made the process even more stressful.

“You’re standing up in that line and you don’t know if you aren’t going to get anything or if you’re going to win that crown,” she said.

As she listened to the names called for the fourth, third and second runners-up, Odenbrett admits she was surprised to still be standing on stage. When they announced the name of the girl standing next to her, she turned to said to Odenbrett, “You’ve got this.”

“I was like, hold up, I’m not ready. Rewind. Recap. The girls next to me were squeezing my hand so hard and they announced my name. It was just so many emotions flowing through my head, and I just remember one piece of hair in front of my face when I was getting crowned,” she said.

“Everybody in the audience just wanted to swoosh it from her face,” adds her mother, Rochelle.

Odenbrett and the other Outstanding Teen candidates also talked their way through the private interview process and in their social impact initiatives.

For the latter, Odenbrett established Leo’s Legacy: Life-Saving Donations, which focuses on educating people – and teens – on the importance of organ and blood donation and bone marrow registration.

The motivation behind her social impact program is personal. Leo Hoehn was a close friend of the family who died in 2017 by suicide. Through his death, he was able to save seven different people’s lives because he was an organ donor, she said. 

“His family said that if he was not an organ donor they would have a harder time getting over his death, and it’s because some of his organ recipients contacted their family and let them know how much of an impact they made on them,” she said.

One of the recipients was a nursing student who missed his pinning ceremony, which is a huge ceremony in a nurse’s life, to get his kidney. Another was a grandpa who was unable to walk up the stairs to put his granddaughter to bed, but after he received his organ, he was able to not only walk up, but carry his granddaughter up and put her to bed.

“Hearing those stories, that’s impact from that, so I want people to know that. I want people to know that even as a family who has an organ donor and has given organs to someone else, that can impact them and I think that’s very important for people to know,” she said.

Odenbrett said there are 100,000 people that can’t afford organ donation, because it costs $32,000 up to $1.6 million.

“That’s another one of my goals for starting that and was a huge step in my social impact initiative,” she said.

She also wants to share the message with her teen peers by going into schools as the state teen title holder and sharing the importance of talking to your parents and getting to know more about organization. In the state of South Dakota, you sign up at the age of 14 and you make that life decision if you’re going to be an organ donor, and so I want to go to teens and tell them this is how important it is. This is how big of an impact you can make. You can save up to eight different people by becoming an organ donor, and that’s so easy to do. You just check a box and you’re done.”

Fitness for teens and formal attire round out the competition.

Competing in Miss America Outstanding Teen organization has elevated Odenbrett’s confidence. 

“Before this, speaking in front of even a class was super hard for me. I would be shaking. I would be so nervous, you could hear it in my voice,” she said. “After competing in Miss Siouxland, I was totally fine in speech class, which was my favorite class ever, mostly because of the teacher (a shout out to Mr. [Dan] Canfield). I would go up there and I got the best scores ever personally, because I would keep eye contact because of that private interview I’ve had with the judges. One thing that I took into consideration is you just have to think of them as your friends. You’ve taken control of that interview; that is your job to do. You are showing them how great you are, how confident you are, how well-spoken you are, and that’s why I love it so much.”

Odenbrett is quick to refer to the Miss America competition as a “scholarship competition. 

“We aren’t supposed to call it a ‘pageant.’ We’re supposed to call it a scholarship competition because it is the leading provider for scholarships for women. It hands out over $5 million in scholarship dollars every year in the Miss America organization, and I have earned over $5,000,” she said.

To date, she has won in-kind scholarships from five different colleges.

“Just for competing you get scholarship money but then going off of that, you can earn more. At Miss South Dakota, they gave us opportunities for a volunteering scholarship, a STEM scholarship ($250), a Jackrabbit scholarship ($1,000), the latter two of which she applied for and was awarded simply by writing an essay.

The time this Brandon 15-year-old puts into the competition is completely her own decision.

“You kind of make the title what you want to make it. If you don’t want to spend a lot of time on it, go ahead, you don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. If you want to spend a lot of time on it, go ahead,” she said. “For me, I won my local title before school started, so during the school year, I was able to focus on school, I was able to focus on dance while still carrying out the title. At the state level, it’s a little more intense because a month and a half after you get crowned, it’s probably a little more time-consuming, depending on the amount of work you want to put into it. For me, I’m putting a lot of work into it because this has been a big dream of mine and it is counted as an opportunity.”

If Odenbrett is crowned Miss America Outstanding Teen next month, she says she’ll “figure it all out.”

“But I will still be a sophomore at Brandon Valley High School,” she assures.

At BVHS, Odenbrett plays the alto saxophone with the Marching Lynx is involved in Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA) and the Tri-M honor Society. Outside the walls of BVHS, she’s highly involved in dance, training at the Artistry studio and performing in Lights Up Production musicals.

While the title of “Miss South Dakota” is still sinking in for Odenbrett herself, her parents Rochelle and Luke are proud of the young woman their daughter is becoming.

“We knew she’d compete, but just winning was so cool,” Rochelle said. “Watching her on stage, I was so proud of her doing her best. That’s what we always want is just the best Olivia there can be. That’s what I think has been the most fun is watching her prepare and just continually improving on who she is as an individual. The growth and maturity that we’ve seen in the last 12 months is just incredible, and that’s what makes me proud, seeing her taking it and doing so much with it.”

Category:

The Brandon Valley Journal

 

The Brandon Valley Journal
1404 E. Cedar St.
Brandon, SD 57005
(605) 582-9999

Email Us

Facebook Twitter

Please Login for Premium Content