Cook art teacher wins Miss Minnesota USA, heads to Miss USA

Rachel Betterley’s win brought a statewide spotlight back to Cook and North Woods School, where the art teacher wrapped up the school year by claiming the Miss Minnesota USA crown. The title sends her to Miss USA in Miami, Florida, and gives the small Northland community a teacher whose day job and public platform now overlap in a way few local stories do.

Betterley’s victory carries added weight because Miss USA broadened eligibility rules to allow married women, mothers and women over 28 to compete. Betterley has said that makes her the first wife, first mom and first woman over 30 to win Miss Minnesota USA, a milestone that places her squarely in a changing pageant landscape. The national competition is scheduled for Aug. 20 through Aug. 28, 2026, and pageant materials say the winner joins the official 2026 class in Miami.

For Cook and the surrounding Iron Range, the significance goes beyond the pageant itself. Betterley is already known in her classroom and in the community through Sketchbooks for Kids, a project that began after she noticed students asking if they could take sketchbooks home. The effort was built around a simple idea: give children who have experienced trauma a creative outlet, a place to practice skills and a safe form of expression through art.

The project has grown from a local response into a broader service effort. In a 2023 WDIO report, Betterley said she had sent out 500 sketchbooks and hoped to reach 2,000. A more recent interview says Sketchbooks for Kids has now delivered sketchbook sets to thousands of young people across more than 25 states and 12 countries, showing how a classroom observation in Cook became something far larger.

Minnesota also has a pageant history Betterley is now stepping into. Barbara Elaine Peterson won Miss Minnesota USA and then Miss USA in 1976, giving Betterley’s run a direct connection to the state’s past success. KPC Productions is listed as the official Miss USA and Miss Teen USA state pageant operator for Minnesota and several neighboring states, and the Miss USA Open Casting program says winners join the 2026 class in Miami.

Betterley said she wants to represent Minnesota well and use the national platform to shine a light on the Range. For North Woods School, that means one of its teachers is carrying local pride into a national competition while continuing the classroom work that made her story stand out in the first place.