A distinguished young woman

Minneota senior Molly Krog, representing Ivanhoe, was named the winner of the Minnesota Distinguished Young Women scholarship program Sunday at The Garage in Burnsville.
"I’m very thankful for the opportunity to represent Minnesota," said Krog, the daughter of Kelly and Nancy Krog of rural Arco. "And I’m grateful to the state committee that organized the weekend, and to the other finalists."
Kim Bloch of Ivanhoe, also a senior at Minneota High School, was also a state finalist.
"I thought the whole experience was life changing," said Bloch. "I met so many great girls that I hope to stay in touch with throughout my life.
"I loved how open and encouraging we all were with each other. It made the whole state week more fun."
The other young women competing at the state level on Sunday were: Zoe Bennett of Lakeview, Abbie Gotham of Mendota Heights, Hannah Hawley of Elk River, Lydia Meier of New London, and Aunika Zheng of North Oaks.
Distinguished Young Women, which was formerly known as America's Junior Miss, is not a pageant, but rather a national non-profit organization that provides scholarships to high school senior girls.
Each of the 50 states holds a Distinguished Young Women program.

The winners from each of those states advance to the Distinguished Young Women National Final next summer in the program's birthplace of Mobile, AL.
The program, which began in 1958, gives young women the opportunity to compete locally during the summer preceding their senior year of high school.
Contestants compete in five categories: Interview (25 percent of the total score), Scholastics (25 percent), Talent (20 percent), Fitness (15 percent), and Self-Expression (15 percent). Two winners are named in each of the categories.
Krog finished in the top two in Interview, Fitness and Self-Expression.
Bloch shared the DYW's Spirit Award with Hawley, who was also her roommate during the week.
"It was a very special moment for both of us," Bloch said.
Each of the finalists receive scholarship money for various awards. Krog also received an unspecified amount of scholarship money for being named the Minnesota DYW winner.
For her talent portion, Krog performed "Most Girls" by Hailee Steinfeld on her alto saxophone.
Bloch, the daughter of Ben and Shelly Bloch, sang, "A Million Dreams" by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for her talent.
The interview portion requires the finalists to answer random questions from five judges for approximately 10 minutes.
"They asked questions on things such as politics, personality and current events," Krog explained.
The young women are also judged on how they perform various exercises during the fitness portion. The scholastic portion combined their GPA and standardized test scores.
"For the Self Expression, they gave us a question a couple of hours before the program and we had to answer it on stage in front of the judges and audience," Krog said.
The question the young women were asked was: “If you could donate your time or resources to one cause with no limitations, what would it be and why?"
"I said my cause would be homelessness," Krog revealed.
Krog, who is undecided on her future plans, now advances to the 63rd annual national scholarship program.
"I had a lot of fun and made a lot of memories (at state)," Krog said. "And I feel everyone on stage deserved to win."
Bloch, who plans to attend Lake Area Technical Institute next fall for the Dental Assistant program, said she will always hold special memories from the past week.
"I will always remember how the girls treated me," she said. "Everyone was so happy about everything and it created an amazing environment to be a part of. I will also remember the volunteers that helped with state week and the kindness they showed me."