The 2012 Washington Fair Queen will be selected by a panel of four judges.
The queen will be crowned opening night of the Fair, Wednesday, Aug. 1. The program will begin at 8:30 p.m. on the Main Stage.
The judges for this year’s queen contest are Danelle Brown, a St. Louis consultant and author; Kate Turner, a meeting planner; Matuschka Lindo, a freelance reporter; and Darrell Kinder, a retired businessman.
The judges will conduct interviews with each of the contestants. The girls will be judged on personality, wit, honesty and spontaneity.
During the evening competition, the girls will be judged on appearance and poise.
While the judges make their final decisions during the contest, the candidates will perform on stage.
The candidates themselves will vote on Miss Congeniality prior to the ceremony. Miss Congeniality will be announced with the queen and her court.
The queen will receive a $2,500 scholarship to the college of her choice. The first runner-up will receive a $1,000 scholarship and second runner-up, a $750 scholarship. Miss Congeniality will receive a $500 scholarship.
During the five-day Fair, the queen and her court will make special appearances and carry out promotional duties.
Profiles on each of the judges are as follows:
Danelle Brown
Danelle Brown is founder and president of Queen Bee Consulting, a certified Book Yourself Solid business coach, certified professional author consultant, CEO at MB Tech Inc., and author of “Soulmate Proprietors: How to Run a Business With Your Spouse and STAY Married!”
As a professional business coach, Brown specializes in working with small businesses, helping them identify and focus on their target markets to maximize profits while balancing work and family life. Having run her own technology and consulting services company with her husband Marcel, she uses her own experiences to help her clients.
Brown’s specialties include business coaching, social media, marketing and accountability programs. She instructs business owners and helps them implement social media strategies and marketing plans. She’s also an expert at connecting people and showing them how to network.
Recently, Brown was named managing director for the Greater St. Louis Metropolitan Chapter of eWomenNetwork, allowing her to take her business matchmaking abilities to the next level.
Her newest company, New Publishing Partners, helps other entrepreneurs realize their dreams of becoming an author. Brown’s role is to assist authors in the publishing and development process and coordinate the marketing promotion of their book.
Kate Turner
Kate Turner is a meeting planner for the International Association of Fairs and Expositions. She started with the IAFE in July 1997.
Her primary duties at the IAFE center around the planning of the spring seminar, management conference and annual convention, including the hiring of speakers, organizing workshops and social events, and working with the hotel and outside contractors for logistics.
Turner grew up attending the Shawnee County Fair in Topeka, Kan., showing goats, cattle, sheep, horses and two pigs. She also participated in other projects during her 13 years in 4-H including sewing and cooking.
In high school, Turner participated in FFA where she was chapter president and a district officer. She also competed in most of the judging contests. She was a member of a team that won the Kansas state dairy judging contest going on to compete at the National FFA Contest. Their team placed third in the state and participated in the Livestock Judging Contest in Denver where Turner placed in the top five for sheep.
Her 4-H horse judging team qualified to judge at a national competition in Oklahoma City.
Turner graduated from Kansas State University with a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness. She got her start in planning events at K-State where she was a member of a four-person executive committee in charge of planning the university livestock show at the Little American Royal. University animals are used, and anyone at K-State can enter and learn to show the animals in a showmanship contest.
Working for the IAFE is only the second job Turner has had since college. She and her husband Gary moved to Springfield for his coaching job at one of the local high schools. They have one daughter McKenzie, who is 10.
Matuschka Lindo
Former media personality Matuschka Lindo continues to do freelance work throughout the St. Louis Metropolitan Area.
Lindo came to St. Louis as a reporter for KSDK-TV and then co-hosted “The Morning Show” on The River with J.C Corcoran.
She took time off to have a family and freelanced doing television specials, radio commercials and public speaking.
Lindo was back to the air between 2005 and 2007 to co-host a radio show on ESPN called “Moms on Kids Sports,” and reporting on television for “Hooked on Health” through 2010. She continues to do freelance reporting and speaking engagements, and currently is doing communications for Missouri Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Spence.
Lindo is very involved in the St. Louis community, Cardinal Glennon Hospital, Our Lady of the Pillar Church, St. Louis Priory School and is a board member for The Magic House and a board of trustee for Villa Duchesne Oak Hill School.
Lindo is married to Malcolm Briggs, also a former media personality. They have two children, a 16-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl.
Darrell Kinder
Darrell Kinder retired from a 30-year career in the energy business and currently lives in Florida with his wife. They have two daughters, one in New York, and a second daughter starting college in Florida.
Kinder earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, with a minor in mathematics. He held various technical, operations and technical management positions before being named president of Clean Fuels. He headed up the Asia Region while living in Singapore and South Korea, and retired as the CEO of the largest natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas company in Korea.
He currently pursues various outdoor sports and activities, including adventure racing, cycling, mountain biking, hiking, kayaking and mountain climbing.
He and his wife are avid travelers, and have traveled the world.
