Perham graduate Jillian Bain earns runner-up, top talent honors at Miss Minnesota Teen
Perham graduate Jillian Bain turned pageant work into a state runner-up finish, a talent award and more than $8,000 in scholarships and in-kind support.
Jillian Bain, a Perham High School senior from Rush Lake, finished first runner-up at the 2026 Miss Minnesota’s Teen competition and also won Thursday Preliminary Award Talent, putting an Otter Tail County name in the state’s top tier of teen pageant competition. Bain competed as Miss Moorhead’s Teen 2026 at Treasure Island Resort & Casino in Welch, where the Miss Minnesota Organization said the teen contest awarded more than $8,000 in educational scholarships and in-kind donations.
Bain also advanced into the Top 7 semifinals, while the Top 3 were topped by Natalia Yurecko of Miss River Valley’s Teen, who was crowned Miss Minnesota’s Teen 2026, followed by Bain and Marnie Shepersky of Miss Twin Cities Teen as second runner-up. Moorhead Pageants highlighted Bain as both the overall talent winner and first runner-up, underscoring how strongly her performance landed with judges across the weeklong competition.
Her pageant bio shows a résumé built far beyond the stage. Bain said she had competed in the Miss America Opportunity for five years, an experience she says has helped open scholarship and career doors while building confidence. She has done that while balancing cross country, dance at Northern Lights Dance Academy, and a second straight year as Region 6 vice president for Business Professionals of America.
Bain’s community service initiative, BIO-Girls: Raising Self-Esteem Through Physical Activity, has also been part of that path. She said she has been mentoring with the program for three years, linking her pageant work to a local service role that reaches younger girls through movement and self-confidence. That mix of athletics, dance, leadership and service gave her a platform that stretched well beyond Miss Minnesota weekend.
For Otter Tail County families, Bain’s finish points to a practical route into scholarship competition: build skills through school activities, community service and performance training, then carry them into larger stages. Perham, Moorhead Pageants, Northern Lights Dance Academy, Business Professionals of America and BIO-Girls all fed into the same result, a state-level finish that now gives Bain a stronger launch point after high school.
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