Kingwood grad rested and ready for Miss USA
Candice Bennatt, a 2007 graduate of Kingwood High School and former Miss Houston, will represent Louisiana in the Miss USA Pageant, to be broadcast 7-10 p.m. this Sunday on the Reelz channel.
“Texas has always been my home,” said the daughter of Blanca Solo of Humble and Ted Bennatt of The Woodlands.
The former Houston Texans cheerleader currently resides in New Orleans, which is an hour and 15 minutes southeast of the pageant’s host city of Baton Rouge.
Bennatt arrived June 28 in Baton Rouge for two weeks of pre-finals activities as 51 contestants from every state plus the District of Columbia compete for the opportunity to represent the United States at the annual Miss Universe Pageant.
“I just finished my first year of law school,” said Bennatt, a student at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, which she attends with the aid of “a substantial
scholarship,” she said.
Bennatt previously paid for her education with winnings from the Miss Texas Scholarship Pageant, where she placed eighth in 2010 as Miss Houston, then fifth in 2011 as Miss Dallas.
In her last year of eligibility, before she turned 25, Bennatt left Texas.
“I moved to New Mexico,” she said. “It was a really difficult time: my boyfriend suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, from being overseas serving our country; he had a lot of internal issues that we just couldn’t get past, so we called it off. I took the leap of moving to another state, to get a master’s degree in nutrition, and in the process I entered Miss New Mexico and won.”
Bennatt represented the Land of Enchantment at Miss America 2013, its last year on the Las Vegas strip in Paradise, Nevada, before the pageant returned last September to Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Miss America was a dream come true,” says Bennatt, “and it better prepared me to be Miss USA,” whose age cutoff is several years older than contestants at Miss America.
Unlike Miss USA, the Miss America program requires contestants to perform an onstage talent, which Bennatt always accomplished as a dancer.
As Miss Houston she performed to “Mambo Italiano,” which drew upon her roots as half-Italian (she is half-Puerto Rican on her mother’s side of the family tree.)
As Miss Dallas, she danced to Cher’s “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” from the 2010 movie “Burlesque.”
A high school romance that Bennatt said “ended up being unhealthy,” as well as her rocky relationship with a war veteran, helped fuel her passion for educating others about domestic violence and ways to prevent abuse in dating relationships.
The issue also served as Bennatt’s community service platform at Miss America.
While she didn’t place in the national competition, Bennatt returned to New Mexico and blanketed the state with appearances that helped spread awareness about domestic/dating violence.
In the Pelican State, Bennatt shares her story as the state ambassador for the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Shortly before leaving June 28 for Baton Rouge, Bennatt said, “I am preparing, packing and ready to roll.”
At www.missusa.com, Bennatt’s pageant biography reports that she graduated from Sam Houston State University (in 2010) with a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in communications.
“My father is a ‘retired,’ always-busy, former biomechanical engineer,” said Bennatt. “He is an inventor, a pool shark, a bowler, everything manly that doesn’t have to do with pageants.”
However, he donned a tuxedo to escort her as Miss Houston 2010 in the state pageant’s evening gown competition in Arlington.
“My mother is kind of shy,” said Bennatt.
Solo is a Spanish teacher at Teague Elementary School in Pasadena, but plans to retire in January.
The pageant has already sparked controversy, with NBC-TV yanking it from its schedule after its corporate partner, Univision, announced that it would not broadcast the three-hour show because of pageant co-owner Donald Trump’s remarks about Mexican immigrants in his announcement that he is running for President in 2016.
Bennatt, who is part Hispanic, said she won’t allow the controversy to distract her preparations.
““I’m not letting this road bump bring me down,” Bennatt said.
“I am taking it all real positively. As a Hispanic-American myself, I think his words were broadly misinterpreted. The Miss Universe Organization has given so many opportunities to so many women of different ethnicities.”
For more, visit www.missusa.com.